WHO CAUSED PANIC ABOUT SUGAR
Lragir
Oct 23 2007
Armenia
People stood in line in shops to buy sugar, in some shops sugar
was sold at a double price. On October 23 the chair of the State
Commission for Economic Competition Protection Ashot Shahnazaryan held
a news conference. "I cannot say that the society was misled, rumors
spread very fast. I think, our study showed that it was exaggerated
by shops. They told our officers who visited shops incognito that
the prices will go up soon," Ashot Shahnazaryan said.
He says there is no political reason. However, Shahnazaryan finds it
difficult to tell what happened in reality and who caused the panic.
He only says the Salex Group owned by Samvel Alexanyan, which imports
84 percent of sugar to Armenia, has nothing to do with the panic.
Shahnazaryan says the importer continues to sell sugar for the same
price. "In accordance with our law, if the business is dominant,
or is a monopoly, it has problems with us in case of an unjustified
change of the price. We study and if the price is not justified,
the international price has not gone up, it means the markup could
not change, the costs did not rise, but he raises the price, we take
it into consideration because it is a monopoly. We attended to this
issue because this is a matter of behavior. Because they would accuse
us of overlooking the sale of sugar for 400 drams per kg. We wanted to
find out. We requested and got a response that they continue to sell
the product at the same price, we found out that the retailers had
raised the price. Meanwhile, it is the sphere of free competition,
and we are not authorized to interfere, it is not due to an unfair
competition agreement. We found unfair competition there because
small shops, not big shops, increased the price, started to sell it
for 350-400 drams. Therefore, we are saying that we will study your
behavior and here we notice unfair competition. If they fail to correct
their mistake immediately, according to the law, we notify businesses
about breaches. Let this sound as a warning," Ashot Shahnazaryan says.
He thinks small shops caused the panic. "Who benefited over these two
days? Small shop owners. They did not sell sugar at all or sold for 400
drams," Ashot Shahnazaryan says, adding that he is not protecting the
interests of the importer. By the way, the importer used the panic and
sold supply of ten days through a chain of shops he owns for 220 drams
per kilo. However, Ashot Shahnazaryan thinks it makes no difference
in how many days the importer sells his sugar because he cannot sell
more than the annual demand of the country, 60 thousand tons.
"Am I protecting someone’s interests? I am stating officially that
the importer has enough sugar to supply the demand for 6 months, and
the price will not change. Whose interest is being protected now, the
importer’s or the consumer’s? Or would you wish people were cheated
and bought sugar for 400 drams? I wouldn’t. whoever the import is,
since he is in our economic competition sphere, we are performing
our function. Monopoly is not illegal, our legislation allows us to
control the behavior of monopolies, to prevent breaches of behavior,"
Ashot Shahnazaryan says. He thinks there was no violation of the
monopoly behavior. The chair of the fair economic competition
commission thinks panic may reoccur. "It is probable. Do you know
the reason? Low awareness. It is due to our and your good work. The
belief of people in the negative also mattered. Now we are fighting
together something which does not exist to prove that what does not
exist does not exist," Ashot Shahnazaryan says.
He says, however, that there will be no shortage of sugar, and the
price will not go up because the importer assured that there is enough
sugar to supply the demand for 6 months, and there are contracts on
imports for one year which guarantee that the price will not change. In
addition, the importer now sells sugar for 220 drams instead of 230
grams per kg to reassure the society. "Nobody made the importer lower
the price. He did it to restore confidence in people.
Perhaps he wanted to persuade people, I don’t know why he lowered it.
He stated that I have even lowered the price by 10 drams, to assure
our people that the price will not go up," says Ashot Shahnazaryan,
and afterwards one may only exclaim: "Long live our importer! The
most human importer in the world!"
DON’T WORRY, THERE IS ENOUGH SUGAR FOR 6 MONTHS
On October 23 the chair of the Fair Economic Competition Commission
of Armenia Ashot Shahnazaryan made a statement on the panic about
shortage of sugar. For two or three days, some shops have sold no
sugar at all, other shops sell it expensively.
"We have reliable information on the supply of sugar, the recent panic
was caused artificially, for whatever reason. I officially announce for
the people of Armenia that there is enough sugar to supply Armenia for
six months, and no change of price is expected in the upcoming year,"
stated the chair of the commission Ashot Shahnazaryan.
"The supply of sugar will be under control, the demand will
be supplied, and there will be no change of price. One more
notification. If the problem is not solved, in accordance with the
law, the shops which are creating artificial shortage, and unfair
competition is observed to raise the prices through creating an
artificial shortage to draw extra profit, the commission will discuss
this issue, and they will be fined," Ashot Shahnazaryan says.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
