On March 12, 2022, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov held a meeting on the implementation of the instructions given by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev since the beginning of this year.

The meeting participants discussed issues of price stabilization for socially significant food products, food security and antimonopoly response measures.

Over the past week, prices for socially important food products rose by 0.2%. Cabbage went up the most by 1.6%, sugar by 0.6% and potatoes by 0.5%.

In terms of regions, the maximum increase in prices for the week was allowed in the Mangystau region by 0.8%, in Kostanay and Kyzylorda regions by 0.4%.

The Deputy Prime Minister criticized the work of the akimats of these regions and instructed to strengthen control over prices for each item of food. He also instructed to carry out work on monitoring compliance by trade entities with the allowable trade margin on an ongoing basis.

During the meeting, the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition of Kazakhstan reported that work is currently ongoing on previously initiated 7 investigations on signs of anti-competitive concerted actions to increase prices for socially significant food products in Kostanay, Karaganda, Akmola, Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan, for the production of fertilizers in the Mangystau region and Almaty.

Two investigations were completed in Akmola region in relation to a bread producer and in Zhambyl region in relation to a sugar factory. According to earlier notifications, 8 were executed with a decrease in the price of products (5 in Kostanay region and 3 in North Kazakhstan region). 7 acts of antimonopoly compliance were concluded to prevent violations of competition law, as well as to reduce the trade markup for NWPT from 15 to 10% when they are sold.

In addition, Bakhyt Sultanov instructed to strengthen the work of regional commissions to investigate intermediary schemes along the entire pricing chain with the adoption of appropriate measures. The Akimat of the Turkestan region was instructed, together with the MIT and the Ministry of Agriculture, to ensure the supply of early vegetables, including cabbage, to the country's regions in a manually.

It should be noted that more than 1,200 producers of the Turkistan region plan to harvest cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions.