Causes of rise in sugar price in Uzbekistan
By Demir Azizov- Trend:
The Uzbek State Committee for privatization, demonopolization and development of competition made an official statement on the reasons for an arising artificial shortage of and subsequent price hike of sugar in the country.
Since June, agiotage arose on the acquisition of sugar in Tashkent and a number of regions of Uzbekistan, which led to unjustified increase in prices for these products.
The price of one kilogram of sugar has increased from 2,800 soums to 6,000 soums in some outlets over this period. A huge queue was lined up for sugar in large shopping centers, where it is sold at 3,200 soums per kilogram, however, while buying sugar consumers were obligated to buy other foodstuffs.
As the state committee reported, the reason for this was the "elementary speculative activities aimed at creating artificial shortage on the product, including, possibly, through concerted actions and collusion between market participants as of resellers and retail outlets."
The analysis conducted by the state committee showed that "today there are no objective factors that could adversely affect the availability of sugar in the country."
In January-June 2014, sugar production in Uzbekistan increased by 14.7 percent compared to the same period in 2013, the volume of putting up sugar on exchange trading increased by 4.7 percent, which fully meet the demand for sugar of both population during the canning berry fruit products, and industrial consumers, the committee said.
The statement also noted that some 12,000 tonnes of sugar will
be delivered to retailers during July, and the entire amount
provided for sale on the stock exchange will be fully exposed until
July 20.
Thus, today there are sufficient stocks of sugar in the country to
completely cover the demand, the statement said.
The government, in order to stabilize the market and eliminate
speculation in the Uzbek sugar market, envisages the introduction
of temporary establishment of maximum retail prices, in accordance
with which the price of sugar should not exceed 3,200 soums per
kilogram throughout the retail network.
The State Committee within its mandate, began to study the state of
the whole chain of sale of sugar, including its wholesale and
retail units for the prevention of creating an artificial
shortage
Upon identification of the collusive and coordinated action among
market participants that lead to unjustified increase in price, the
State Committee intends to initiate an antitrust case and apply
"the most stringent legal sanctions" regarding said persons.
As previously reported, the annual demand for sugar in Uzbekistan is about 700,000 tonnes. "Xorazm Shakar" plant is the only sugar producer in Uzbekistan, which produces annually about 350,000 tonnes of sugar, the rest is imported.
The official exchange rate on July 12 is 2320.16 soums / $1.