OREANDA-NEWS. December 02, 2014. The Head of the Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) for Control over Chemical Industry and Agro-Industrial Complex, Anna Mirochinenko, took part in a meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. The meeting focused on applying the mechanisms of goods and procurement interventions to regulate prices for agricultural products.

Anna Mirochinenko pointed out in FAS opinion the intervention mechanisms are a tool of state support, least affecting competition on the markets of agricultural products. “Goods and procurement interventions help balance demand and supply of a product on the domestic market in the period of goods surplus or shortage. The ministry’s initiative to change the procedure will ensure compliance with the law on the contract system and it will intensify competition when selecting participants”, emphasized the FAS representative.

The Head of the Department proposed to consider an issue of developing exchange trading with grain and applying a mechanism of registering off-exchange transactions by an exchange. “It will generate representative indices that can be used as the guidelines for determining the level of grain prices when interventions take place”, summed up Anna Mirochinenko. She also proposed to expand the scope of interventions, extrapolating this mechanism to the markets that are most sensitive to seasonal price fluctuations: sugar and raw milk.