The Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that the margin on socially significant goods (about 60 items) should not exceed 5%. We are talking about products from such categories as vegetables of the "borscht set", drinking milk, cottage cheese, kefir, butter, sugar and bread.
The ministry outlined this position at a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
A source familiar with the course of the meeting explained to Izvestia: in each category of products there is an additional division into subcategories. For example, in the case of milk - pasteurized, ultra-pasteurized, sterilized drinking and so on. In total, there are 15 such subcategories, in each of them the Ministry of Industry and Trade suggests choosing three or four product names. It turns out that a 5% mark-up can affect about 60 products. It is assumed that these goods should be freely and without restrictions available for purchase in all regions of the country, the Izvestia interlocutor added.
“In the issue of reducing commodity margins for food products to 5%, we should talk about several commodity items most in demand by the buyer in each of the socially significant categories,” said Viktor Evtukhov, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The list of products with minimal markups can be both fixed and “floating”, it can also differ in different regions and stores, FAS told Izvestia.
The minimum markup of 5% on the products chosen by the chains will come into effect after the regulators agree among themselves. While the Ministry of Agriculture insists on a tougher approach, one of the participants in the meeting told Izvestia. According to him, the department proposed to set a margin of no more than 5% for all items of goods within four categories. The Ministry of Agriculture expects that this measure will not only reduce the price of goods on the shelf, but also reduce inflation, the source said.
In each category of products, a retail chain can have about a hundred items of products, it is impossible to reduce the margin for each of them, a source in one of the networks told Izvestia. Businesses are not ready to implement such an approach for economic reasons, because they cannot cope with significant losses. At the same time, it is possible to reduce the margin on several goods within four categories, he specified.
He added that despite the measures taken by regulators, the cost of socially important goods on the shelf is likely to continue to grow. The fact is that against the backdrop of news about markup restrictions, manufacturers began to notify companies of an increase in the purchase price by an average of 7% for products such as milk, chicken, bread, and so on.
The X5 group has analyzed the categories of goods for which it is proposed to reduce the markup to 5%, the company told Izvestia. The retailer already sells most of these positions with a negative margin or not exceeding 5%. The company covers all costs for these positions at its own expense, they said.
At the end of 2021, inflation in Russia amounted to 8,4% (the highest since 2015), food inflation - 10,6%.
Limiting the margin to 5% on the most popular goods in seven categories is a good decision, Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the HSE Center for Business Research, told Izvestia. This approach will help poor citizens, on whom this maneuver is aimed. At the same time, trade will not suffer, as it will be able to compensate for the shortfall in income by increasing the markup on premium goods - red fish, alcohol, and others.
“This measure will be useful for all buyers — regulators can meet the most relevant products for consumers,” the expert emphasized.
He noted that such an approach would not significantly affect inflation, but its reduction should not be the goal for the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture. This indicator is regulated by the Central Bank, and it is its measures that can be most effective. First of all, we are talking about changing the key rate. The departments that are responsible for trade and farmers can create conditions for increased competition, which will put pressure on prices, the expert pointed out.