Moscow: rising prices hit large families hard
The consequences of the pandemic forces many families to limit their diet to bread and potatoes. Insufficient nutrition for children. State aid is not considered adequate. Debt for basic necessities has reached record levels.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - Forecasts from bread producers predict price increases from 7 to 12% in August due to the hike in the cost of raw materials, reports Kommersant on the basis of data from the commercial network Vernyj and various operators in the sector: a problem for Russian families, already struggling because of the pandemic.
The prices of all the ingredients needed to produce bread continue to grow, even if the cost of the basic food has remained fixed so far, as explained by the president of the Russian Union of Bakers, Aleksej Ljalin. According to his information, the price of margarine has increased by 38%, sugar by 9% and packaging material by 26%.
Rustam Ajdiev, executive director of the National Union of Bakery, has also raised the alarm about the lack of personnel in the sector, which has forced an increase in salaries for those working in the industry. The Ministry of Agriculture has released information that the prices of bread producers remain stable, although in the last year production costs have increased by more than 6%. The ministry assured that there will be no lack of support measures for producers to keep the price of bread stable.
After the catastrophic 2020, for families food prices are becoming less and less sustainable. Anastasia Baškatova writes in Nezavisimaja Gazeta, "after the birth of the third child one is forced to limit oneself to bread and potatoes." The government had promised to launch strong measures to help large families, but so far these promises have not yielded significant results. According to the statistical institute Rosstat, consumption of vegetables, fruit, fish and dairy products in large families has plummeted, with the focus on bread and derivatives, along with potatoes. Overall, the nutrition of children in Russia appears on average insufficient, however, much lower than in previous years.
The representative of the Humanity social project, Andrej Loboda, adds that often Russian families, in an attempt not to reduce food rations for their children, are forced to cut almost all expenses for other purchases and services. Deputy Premier Tatjana Golikova pointed out that among Russian citizens close to the poverty line, 80% are large families. "We are not able to solve this problem quickly, but somehow we have to get out of it," Golikova said. In recent weeks the Council of Ministers has approved a one-off support of 10 thousand rubles (just over 120 euros) for families with school-age children aged 6 to 18, and also for those with children of age (but with health limitations), to enable them to attend school.
Special measures will support women in the period of pregnancy up to the moment of delivery, the upbringing of children up to 3 years of age, and then also from 3 to 7 years of age, and from 8 to 17 for single parents, as communicated by Minister of Labor Anton Kotjakov. All of these measures could prove to be very ineffective, however, due to price increases: in the autumn, increases of 10-15% are also expected for clothes and shoes, which will exceed 20% at the beginning of 2022, also due to the weakening of the ruble on international markets.
At the same time, consumer debts are reaching record levels, which touched 300 thousand rubles per capita, about 42% more than in 2019. These are data released by a research of the National Bureau for Credit History, whose analysts explain the destination of credits granted by banks and other financial institutions to citizens. In 2021, Russians tried to compensate with new credits for the delayed payments accumulated last year for the pandemic. The numbers reveal that citizens' indebtedness is widespread in similar measures in all regions of the Russian Federation.
Since July, the Central Bank of Russia has tightened the rules of granting consumer credits, compared to the pre-Covid period, in order to avoid excessive "bubbles" on the markets and prevent possible collapses. The catastrophe of the credit pyramids in 1998, the crisis that forced Boris Yeltsyn to retire, transferring full powers to Putin, has not yet been forgotten.
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29/06/2021 10:41
29/10/2021 11:02
