At the moment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that the measures that are already being applied are sufficient to level the price situation.
The rise in prices for certain categories of goods and services is a concern, but the Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that the situation is not yet so complicated that it is necessary to start manually regulating prices.
The ministry noted that there are market mechanisms for this. In addition, the government has already introduced individual measures, and in general they are working.
At the same time, officials admit that if the situation continues to deteriorate, individual elements of regulation may well be used. However, in this case, it is unlikely that we will talk about limiting markups. The ministry considers this measure to be the most extreme.
Instead, there are more effective methods: for example, concluding long-term contracts between suppliers and retailers, as well as agricultural contracts.
Voluntary commitments by retailers to contain prices for certain categories of goods can also help. For example, several years ago this was practiced with regard to vegetable oil.
In general, the risk of a sharp rise in food prices in Russia is currently practically absent, experts believe.
First of all, this is due to seasonality. The new season’s harvest will soon begin to enter the market, which should reduce prices.
However, analysts admit that the seasonal price reduction is short-term, and therefore is not a panacea.
In order to prevent a significant increase in prices in the long term, representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture hold regular consultations with business representatives. The main goal of such meetings is to develop a balanced approach that, on the one hand, will allow businesses to earn normally, and on the other, will not be associated with an excessive increase in prices for essential products.
At the same time, high market competition can serve as some protection against unjustified price increases.
For example, there are thousands of producers in the fruit and vegetable market, so it is minimally threatened by monopolization, which often leads to price abuses by the monopolist.
It is worth recalling that this spring, associations of food producers and suppliers appealed to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with a request not to allow price regulation.
In their opinion, such a tool is more harmful than useful, and can cause serious stagnation in the industry.
For this reason, other measures, primarily market ones, should be used to combat unjustified price increases, experts believe.
