Economic crisis sees return of 'Soviet' prices for bread, salami and vodka

Prices frozen like in Brezhnev's time.  In the last month, the prices of food products have increased by 30%.  The economic crisis is worsened by sanctions and the pandemic.  Mandatory agreements with sugar and oil producers, and with wheat and cereal import / export companies.  Putin's suspects anti-Russian maneuvers in international markets.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Russian minister for economic development, Maksim Reshetnikov, is proposing to change the system setting  market prices for "socially significant" food products (photo 2).  Following this measure taken two days ago, the Russian government will be able to intervene with authority if the price of the main food products rises by at least 10% over the course of 30 days even in one of the more than 90 regions of the Federation, without taking  account of seasonal variations.

This type of state intervention on price fixing hasn't been seen since Brezhnev's time.  In the long Brezhnev stagnation (the zastoj from 1964 to 1984) it was forbidden to increase the prices of bread, salami and vodka.  The economic crisis of recent years, aggravated by Western sanctions after the conflict in Ukraine and the pandemic, is once again pushing Russia into the abyss of Soviet-style "economic leveling".

According to a 2010 law, "socially significant" food products form a sliding scale of 24 positions, and include milk, sugar, eggs, sunflower oil, wheat flour, bread, among others.  In the last month these products have increased by about 30%, creating a real panic in the population and emptying the supermarket shelves (photo 3), for fear of further increases.  Usually, the ministry of economic development sets price caps every 90 days, but now, according to Reshetnikov, extraordinary and imposing measures are needed on market mechanisms.  The limits proposed after the 2010 law, in fact, have never been respected.

By December 20, mandatory agreements will therefore be signed for the first quarter of 2021 with sugar and sunflower oil producers, which will lead to lower prices: a kilo of sugar cannot cost more than 36 rubles (about 40 euro cents  ) wholesale and 45 rubles (50 cents) at retail;  oil is set at 95-110 rubles (just over one euro).  In exchange, credits will be granted for the purchase of sugar beet and the necessary import products.  Similar measures will concern the import / export of wheat and cereals.

However, President Vladimir Putin (photo 4) warned the government against repeating Soviet-style economic practices.  Last week he recalled "the time when there was everything in our country, but this was not enough for anyone".  At that time there was a lack of raw materials;  today many families lack the means of subsistence.  And although the president praised the resistance of the Russians, able to "settle for sailor's macaroni", that is, boiled together with any other ingredient, however "such increases cannot be justified by the pandemic, which has nothing to do with it, nothing to do with the food crop".

Putin has raised suspicions that there are anti-Russian maneuvers in international markets, to force Russian producers to chase foreign market prices, and forced Prime Minister Mikhail Mišustin to take urgent measures on the front of anti-monopoly control and agencies.  tax, seeking the collaboration of large-scale distribution networks.  Further limits will be placed on exports, and distributors will be brought to unified agreements at the federal level.  In reality, all these "urgent" measures appear decidedly behind events, and could lead to levels of public debt similar to the recent Soviet times.