The Acting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade and Integration, Serik Zhumangarin, chaired a meeting on price containment for socially important food products on August 20, 2022.

Over the past week, the cost of socially important food products rose by 0.2%. The largest increase was observed for corncobs (+2.1%), rice, sunflower oil and salt (+1.3%), flour, cottage cheese and sugar (+0.6%). A reduction in prices was recorded for a range of vegetable products: onions (-4.6%), potatoes (-1.8%), cabbage (-1.7%) and carrots (-1.5%).

Yerzhan Kazanbaev, the Chairman of Trade Committee of the Ministry of Trade and Integration, raised the issue of the need to strengthen the work of regional commissions and monitoring groups on trade mark-ups. According to him, it is necessary to revise the approaches in the work of regional commissions, so that they could focus on their main task of identifying excessive intermediaries, which have a direct impact on food pricing.

Having heard the information of akims, and the information of the Ministry of Agriculture regarding the situation with the provision of basic food products in the country, Serik Zhumangarin outlined the main tasks for the coming period.

"We held a session of meetings with associations of major producers of socially important food products, we will review the scheme of financing and distribution of working capital, for five items of socially important food products we plan to move to contracting schemes directly with producers. Our task is to prevent shortages and reduce the growth rate of prices for basic foodstuffs.  The main thing is to ensure full control, including the activities of regional commissions. Establishment of regional commissions to identify middlemen is an instruction of the head of state. Their work must be strengthened by resources of regional offices of the Ministry of Trade and Integration.  I assign this work to the Committee on Trade," Zhumangarin said.