Alikhan Smailov orders to investigate sugar monopolist's operations

The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Alikhan Smailov, held a regular meeting of the Commission for Demonopolization of the Economy, where the measures of antimonopoly response to the commodity sugar market were considered.

Chairman of the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition Serik Zhumangarin noted that the main amount of sugar in the country is produced by four plants located in Zhambyl and Almaty regions.

In the meantime, the major part of the sugar produced in the country (about 90%) is purchased by a big wholesale supplier. The actions of the supplier show the signs of withdrawal of goods from the circulation resulting in an increase of the market prices for sugar up to 700-800 tenge while the factory-manufacturer sells it at 420-450 tenge.

Thus, when the dynamics of sugar sales were analyzed, it was found that at the end of each month the company had a balance that would allow it to partially meet the demand in some regions of the country. In this connection, the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition appointed investigation on signs of violation of antimonopoly legislation.

In order to change the current situation, it is proposed to tighten control over market participants in terms of their sales of minimum lots of sugar (60 tons) through the commodity exchange, to oblige importers to sell sugar through the exchange and to consider the issue of working loans for production factories to purchase raw materials.

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