AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS PRODUCERS ASK FOR THE WORKING CAPITAL TO PURCHASE HARVEST AS A CONDITION OF NON-INCREASING PRICES

As part of the ongoing work on monitoring food prices, the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition held  meetings with agricultural producers and their associations.

Today, there is a decrease in the weekly dynamics of growth in prices for socially significant food products from 0.5-0.6% to 0-0.1%.

Given the emergence of a new crop of agricultural products and the support of the government, including the provision of fuels and lubricants, there are no obvious reasons, as voiced by the meeting participants, for a sharp rise in food prices until the end of this year. The exception is chicken eggs, the prices of which, after the unprofitable summer off-season, will return to the level of the beginning of the year.

At the same time, a number of basic factors remain that create risks of price increases.

First of all, this is a high share of import dependence on the markets of socially important food products - sugar, sunflower oil, buckwheat, horns, beef, etc. This means an unconditional increase in domestic prices for these products with an increase in prices abroad.

 The second is a decrease in production volumes of certain types of agricultural products and sown areas, including due to the instability of subsidizing areas, a decrease in the volume of allocated funds.

In turn, agricultural producers are asking to allocate working capital for the purchase of raw materials of the new crop at the current low prices in order to avoid an increase in the cost of purchasing raw materials during the year.

At the same time, the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition has started work to identify intermediary schemes for the sale of agricultural products and the validity of the use of trade markups.