Press Review - June 11, 2018

Ensuring food security, the rise in price of some foodstuffs, and statistics on social inequality are the leading topics of today's press.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes that the state care and the peasant work guarantee food security. The author writes that the beginning of agrarian reforms in the country was laid by Heydar Aliyev in the 1990s. His land reform went down in history, creating the ground for the transformation of the collective farmer into a farmer. More than 50 decrees, laws and other documents were signed in the period of 1993-2003 in the agrarian region. Four out of 45 agro parks were put into operation, and their creation, as the author asserts, guarantees food safety.

The newspaper Yeni Musavat writes about the change in prices for foodstuffs. In particular, the author cites the opinion of the expert Gubad Ibadoglu on the groundlessness of the State Statistics Committee"s statements of reduction in the prices for certain food products.

Beef and lamb, eggs, sugar cubes and granulated sugar on the contrary have become more expensive. He also touches upon the prices of butter, which continue to rise. It is imported from 15 countries (85% of the butter comes from New Zealand). Import of butter from this country is divided by several oligarchs among themselves, and this prevents the price of butter from falling.

The newspaper Novoye Vremya writes that, despite the apparent difference in the incomes of Azerbaijanis, the State Statistics for some reason keeps silence about the data on social stratification and the distribution of national income. For this reason, it is almost impossible to calculate the depth of social inequality. The existing Gini indicator in the world reflects the degree of income inequality and is used throughout the civilized world.

The greater the inequality in the distribution of income, the greater the "justice index" approaches 1. The higher the equality in the distribution of income, the smaller is the Gini coefficient.

In Azerbaijan, such measurements are not carried out at all, and the statistical indicator of the degree of stratification of society is completely absent. -0--