OREANDA-NEWS. October 20, 2014. It was reported by Deputy Head of the Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) for Control over Agro-Industry, Irina Yepifanova.

FAS monitors weekly wholesale prices for socially important food products under sanctions: beef, poultry, pork, milk and dairy products, butter, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion and apples.

“According to the monitoring, in the first week of October considerable increases of the wholesale prices for these products were not revealed; on the contrary – prices stabilization is observed, especially for meat products”, pointed out Irina Yepifanova. “Some regions even manifest a downward trend”.

For instance, wholesale beef prices went down in Leningrad, Pskov, Moscow, Saratov regions; pork – in the Stavropol region (on average by 7%), the Novosibirsk region (- 8%), the Zabaikalie region (-9.63%), as well as in the Samara region (-4.95%), the Sverdlovsk and Tver region; for fish – in Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Perm, Penza, Pskov and Sakhalin regions.

At the beginning of October, poultry prices stabilized in the majority of Russian provinces, except Bashkiria, Chechnya and the Sverdlovsk region, where prices went up.

Due to numerous complaints about pricing on this market, FAS carried out inspections, upon the findings of which FAS already opened three cases: in the Stavropol region, Primorie region and Crimea.

Inspections are being carried out in all regions. For instance, Krasnodar OFAS jointly with the executive bodies, Rospotrebnadzor and the Prosecutor’s Office organized 12 unscheduled on-site inspections with regard to 57 retail companies. The region is on the third place on the overall number of complaints received on FAS hot line.

Milk and butter prices at the beginning of October remained unchanged while the seasonal decrease of prices of vegetables stopped.

At the moment, FAS has sent enquiries to the largest pork producers to verify compliance with the antimonopoly law.