Either the approach of New Year's holidays worked that way, or for another reason, but the people's deputies suddenly remembered about ordinary Ukrainians. And under the Christmas tree, if, of course, they have time, they want to prohibit the rise in prices in Ukraine. The new bill has even been registered in parliament.
Well, in fact, everything is like in Soviet times, when food prices were dictated by the state, and not by some market laws. But is it possible to simply prohibit prices from rising?
Regulation will not apply to all food products, but only to social ones. That is, the most necessary ones. We took the top 5 products from this list: vegetable oil, bread, buckwheat, eggs and sugar . And let's check: do the deputies themselves know how much these products cost? And how much should the price fall after they are regulated?
But first, let us remind you
That these innovations are not so new. 5 years ago, Ukraine already had a law on state regulation of food prices.
In 2017, the law on price regulation was canceled by the government of Volodymyr Groisman.
Former prime minister says: deceive market laws impossible. And manufacturers will never work at a loss.
Each product has its own cost. That is, the money needed to produce it. Let's look at these costs using bread as an example.
To make it, you need: raw materials & # 8212; at least flour. Therefore, the bread needs to be baked, which means that gas and electricity cannot be dispensed with. The next item of expenditure is the wages of employees. And finally, logistics. We need to deliver the bread to the store, where we can put it in the basket.
– When back in August the gas was 8 hryvnyas, in November gas was already 35 hryvnyas. We have raised the price of bread by 20%.
But this is not the limit. By January 2022, the gas price should rise again. Up to 52 UAH. per cubic meter.
The deputies reassure: the law will not affect the producers, but only the sellers.
The mark-up on the product should be no more than 15%, say the people's representatives. How profitable is it & # 8212; we ask Valentina from Vinnitsa region. The seller honestly admits: the mark-up on her product is up to 40%. She does not like the legislative initiative. But on the other hand, how will the state control it? Will auditors go around the market and compare prices?
Large retail chains are another matter. It would seem that you can control it here. There really is an unfair mark-up. And curbing the voracious appetites of the trading giants would not be overwhelming.
However, this is also a disappointment. The new regulation law will not allow even a supermarket to be controlled. Officially, on paper, the markup on products does not exceed 15% today, the manufacturers say. But the implementers have long worked out for themselves profitable schemes in which they bury the cosmic margin.
But back to our experiment: do the deputies themselves know why the most popular social products? The scandalous People's Deputy Alexander Trukhin, who committed an accident with six victims in the summer, does not know the prices, because he does not go shopping. But there will still be a vote.
In general, most of the people's deputies examined our basket very carefully, as if they were afraid to make a mistake.
But who, with incredible speed, listed all the prices to us, was the people's deputy Sergei Shakhov. The one who recently got into a scandal because he did not declare the state of his common-law wife for almost $ 2 million.
People's Choice & # 8212; for regulation, as they say, with hands and feet, because he is nostalgic for Soviet prices.
And nevertheless, the MPs have not yet come up with another way out, how to keep prices down. Although the market has already raised panic.
However, it will not be easy to adopt such a scandalous law.
Reasons for price increases in Ukraine
First Deputy Prime Minister economy Yulia Sviridenko on Freedom of Speech on ICTV explained the reasons for the rise in prices in Ukraine.
– Because there are world prices, because there is an open economy of Ukraine. And, of course, we export all these products that you mentioned, – this is how she answered the host's question about why, if by the end of 2021 inflation in Ukraine will be about 10%, sunflower oil will rise in price by 60%.
