Today, Vladimir Putin held a working meeting with Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service Maxim Shaskolsky, where, in particular, work on price regulation in socially significant commodity markets was discussed.
Control over pricing in socially significant commodity markets is of priority importance, the head of the FAS Russia noted.
M. Shaskolsky, in particular, reported to V. Putin on the measures that help increase the harvest and production volumes. For example, the FAS controls the procedure for allocating subsidies from the budget to agricultural producers. Recently, about 35 warnings have been given to various authorities, which should ensure non-discriminatory access of agricultural producers to such subsidies.
In addition, it was due to work to provide agricultural producers with mineral fertilizers in the required volume at affordable prices. The Federal Antimonopoly Service, together with other ministries and departments, has developed a trade and marketing policy that takes into account the procedure for setting prices for fertilizers, the procedure for indexing such prices, and the maximum volumes of remuneration for distributors. As a result, such trade and marketing policies are approved by the largest producers of mineral fertilizers, and the Federal Antimonopoly Service enforces compliance. “Thus, our agricultural producers are fully provided with mineral fertilizers at affordable prices,” Maxim Shaskolsky said.
The head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service also reported on the work carried out, as a result of which markups on socially important food products in federal retail chains were reduced from 22% to 5.5%. Such responsible pricing was supported in 79 regional retail chains. In addition, additional work was carried out in such categories as bread, milk, sugar, borscht, and federal retail chains undertook to maintain a margin of no more than 5 percent for the most popular goods in each category.
