Finita Dolce Vita

The Kremlin, if something bothers, is not a bulk and protest promotions, but an increase in food prices. Will state regulation of the cost of food be introduced?

Last week, cheap sugar quickly disappeared in the stores of Krasnoyarsk. Yesterday you came in - the shelves were breaking, today on these regiments - the ball of the roll. The same session of the disappearance of a cheap product (expensive did not affect) was noted in many other cities and regions. Which of the food will disappear next?

More than three months ago, on December 14, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Manturov), the Ministry of Agriculture (Patrushev-Ml.), Manufacturers of sugar and sunflower oil, as well as retailers, signed an agreement (“New” has a copy of it ) “On taking measures to reduce and maintain prices” for Sugar-Peskom white production.

From December 17, selling prices were set “in an amount not exceeding 36 rubles per 1 kg”, and retail - not higher than 46.

To this price, the regional authorities of Siberia, the Far East, the entire Far North and the areas equated to it, as well as the Kaliningrad region, could establish increasing coefficients. In five days, manufacturers and trade were supposed to overestimate the entire ordered, supplied and already packaged goods.

A similar procedure is in relation to sunflower oil . Vacation price - 95 rubles per liter, retail - 110.

The term of the agreement ends on April 1. On March 22, the government instructed the antitrust service, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to work out the extension of agreements with the business: to leave the oil prices until October, by sugar until June: “In order to further maintain retail prices at the level of acceptable level for citizens”.
There is no prolongation at this moment - contrary to everything that is written in many media. There is not even a common opinion. Against, for example, the deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Viktor Yevtukhov, is opposed .

There is only a fact of sugar. He began to disappear immediately as soon as they announced consultations in the government.

Why did sugar make legs? So that the agreement does not extend? A kind of business pressure on the government?

This might look like this, but in reality the agreement and its likely extension of business are beneficial, no matter what its representatives say. See the declared goals: "Reducing and maintaining prices." That is "no higher than." And since December, the buyer in many stores and networks could no longer find oil cheaper than 110 rubles, although before that it was. What was worth more - they reduced (not everything and not everywhere), but everything that was cheaper, almost everywhere rose at once. With sugar - the same. Large networks still followed some decency, shops “near the house” (often units of the same networks) were all heavy.

According to experts surveyed by the “New”, the December agreement gives the business guaranteed profit, lack of competition and responsibility, since within such a framework it works on the basis of government decisions. Of course, the business is not one, it is full of figures and companies who do not need the intervention of the state in the market, but we are not talking about exceptions. And about the trends, which are simple: for example, almost half of the sugar market (48%) are occupied by three companies. Since April 1, the government and other few sugar manufacturers also want to pay extra 5 rubles per kilogram - a total of 3 billion for six months are allotted on subsidies. Also for six months, subsidies and manufacturers of sunflower oil are planned.

The Cabinet of Ministers was instructed by the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and Trade to submit an estate schedule (for six months) of sugar supplies to trade indicating volumes and cost per 1 kilogram. Three (!) Departments will pour over what it seems like in the rest of the world is considered unnecessary/harmful.

Speaking now about the loss of sugar, the retail transfers arrows from himself to manufacturers, saying about problems with purchases (and sunflower oil too). Experts say “new” that this is similar to the truth, the problem is not systemic, but temporary and technical: the demand for sugar has grown, and according to previously concluded supplies, the supply of delivery is carried out in the volume of last year.

Why did demand grow? They talk about the activity of speculators, buyers from Kazakhstan (sugar is getting more expensive in world markets). But the main reason for demand is obvious in what the people felt: sugar will disappear.

And perhaps not only sugar. A source in the economic block of the Government of the Russian Federation informed the “New” that the idea is being discussed to extend such state regulation to all socially significant food products - in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 07/15/2010 (with numerous changes). In particular, according to the latest additions of 12/30/2020, maximum retail prices for 24 products can be set for three months if, over the past two months, prices were 10 or more percent with the exception of the seasonal factor.

Will it end in the end as it happened three months later with sugar, or this time suddenly everything will go well? Obviously, the consequences will depend on what prices will be set in the agreements. Low are good for the population, bad for business, and there may be a shortage. And if on the contrary, what is the goal? Make a pleasant business?

It is clear that in a given conditions it is impossible to find a certain fair price, because there are no fair prices, these two words from different universes. And it would not be worth trying to connect them to the government. However, now not about textbook truths.

Look. Red Yar, one of the large grocery retail chains in Krasnoyarsk. Where sugar was missing right now. I have a chain store at my side, I go to it. In the midst of the pandemic, the first wave, the “Red Yar” began to suddenly call buyers, making their discounts dependent not on the amount of the purchase, but solely on the number of visits to the store. The doctors were placed in the covid-soldiers, darkened at work, and merchants played on the main instincts of today's consumer, urging him more often to hang out in a crowded place. Or other largest shopping malls: escalators turned off, forcing visitors to stuff into elevators or pass the floors from the stairs to the stairs entirely, looping and not missing a single counter. And all this - as if it is necessary. They suffer losses in the pandemic ...

Meanwhile, the revenue of the food retail of Russia is in trillions , and it grows , despite the pandemic. This business is just good. And with such introductory state regulation - this is a corruption -capacious story. Especially if the right to conclude prices for prices will be given to the heads of regions (earlier the Ministry of Agriculture recommended that the regional authorities conduct negotiations with manufacturers on holding prices for pasta, eggs and potatoes). The story with the Penza governor will seem to be games in the sandbox.
No, you can imagine the introduced mechanism of manual price regulation for every socially significant food product. And then - companies with trillion revolutions alone with the heads of subjects. Introduced?
Back in January, it was clearly visible that the Kremlin and the government, if something bothers to some extent, is not a bulk and protest promotions in cities, but rising prices for both regulated and unregulated products. The growth, whose pace, if honestly, are inexplicable by any objective factors. Statistics and forecasts did not comfort. And of course, the government could not but understand that in our conditions and with our traditions, diligence, and economic practices, freezing prices are fraught with even more energetic growth - through the politically no less intense stage of empty shelves.

Although, of course, it is difficult for the layman to imagine what is happening in the head heads. But if you still try. Perhaps they saw that the faces of those who went on the square on January 23 and 31 were different. Unusual. Because a protest meaningless from a practical point of view: nothing concrete was advanced, they did not expect that they would free Navalny. A protest against immanence, an attempt to stay ideal in the realization of the complete failure of this matter. And what will happen if others also come out, with specific claims regarding primary needs? Find the line on which the citizens of the Russian Federation will not yet put on the square, but they will already take up their survival, without paying more attention, it is not easier than determining the fair price for sugar and oil.