OREANDA-NEWS. September 01, 2014. After introducing bans on some food products imported from the US, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway, the Government of the Russian Federation instructed executive bodies to exercise operational monitoring and control over the relevant markets to deter growth of prices for food products included in the exclusion list.

To execute the instructions, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) devised the Action Plan to control the situation on food products markets and opened a “hot line” at FAS official web-site.

In the first week, FAS received 631 petitions, most of which - 569 petitions –concerned increased retail prices for food products. The geography of complaints covers all regions across the country.

According to Anna Mirochinenko, the Head of FAS Control Department over Chemical Industry and Agro-Industry Complex, most frequently members of general public complain about growing prices for meat products, mainly poultry (144 petitions). Fruits and vegetables are on the second position: general public complained that prices for kiwi, lemons, grapes and apples went up.

The majority of complaints about dairy products relate to increased cheese prices; fish – mostly trout and salmon (42 petitions).

In the wholesale segment complaints relate mostly to increased cheese prices (complaints were filed from Moscow, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, and Voronezh regions) and poultry (Moscow, Kirov, Astrakhan, Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kamchatka regions).

Upward trends for the wholesale pork prices are observed in Moscow, Tatarstan and Smolensk, Novosibirsk and Amur regions, sausages and semi-finished meat products - in Samara, Smolensk and Khabarovsk regions.

“The monitoring is continued. The Federal Antimonopoly Service receives complaints from general public on a daily basis. Having analyzed the obtained information, we instructed all FAS regional Offices to tighten control over prices on the food markets”, commented Anna Mirochinenko.