World meat industry news

It became known that the Ministry of Agriculture did not approve the initiative of the State Duma regarding the regulation of trade margins on essential foodstuffs. At the end of last year, the State Duma issued a resolution with the following recommendation to the government: the maximum margin on such goods should be at the level of 10-15%. The Ministry of Agriculture replied that without regulation of each stage of production and sale, it would not be possible to constantly limit margins.

Also, experts from the Ministry of Agriculture believe that additional state intervention in this industry will lead to destabilization of the economy. Moreover, the government of the Russian Federation already has the right to introduce marginal prices for certain goods for up to 90 days if their cost has increased by more than 10% in two months. This measure is applied without regard to seasonality. During the period of hype, you can also reduce margins to a minimum and limit the sale of goods to one person.

Analysts at Gazprombank, in turn, consider markup restrictions imposed by the state to be one of the most important risks for the industry. “A year ago, for the first time, a bill was considered to establish a marginal markup of up to 10% for essential foodstuffs. After that, large retail chains voluntarily reduced markups on some goods to 5%,” they said.

“Instead of reducing the cost of goods for suppliers and chains, it is better to apply, for example, a reduced VAT rate on certain goods, introduce a flexible credit policy, preferential rent and antimonopoly price controls,” said Igor Karavaev, chairman of the Presidium of the Association of Retail Companies.

And the deputy chairman of the board of Rusprodsoyuz, Dmitry Leonov, emphasized that the risks of state price regulation could be eliminated by providing targeted assistance to the poor. Marat Ibragimov, a senior analyst at Gazprombank, added that many essential food products form traffic. “Among them there are the cheapest goods, so chains can keep margins without harm to business,” the expert concluded in an interview with a source.