Why do fruits and vegetables rise in price before the holiday?

Baku/18.03.22/Turan: There are only a few days left before Novruz Bayram. In the pre-holiday markets, prices rise every year. What is the situation this year? What food products have risen in price? Does the Russian-Ukrainian war affect food prices?

Expert Vahid Maharramli speaks about this in the “Difficult Question” program.

According to him, in recent years, many food products have risen in price significantly. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the prices of a range of foodstuffs have begun to rise, and this rise continues today.

“Monopoly does not allow importing quality goods at a relatively cheap price and maintaining stable prices. It is not normal when prices for all foodstuffs go up at the same time. There are forces that create the conditions for this and are interested in this - these are government officials, these are monopolists,” Maharramli explained.

According to the expert, businessmen raised prices for traditional consumer goods - fruits, vegetables, but prices for holiday goods - walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, sultanas and so on. which are 30-50% more expensive in Azerbaijan than in neighboring Turkey, Iran and Georgia, are maintained at the same level.

“In other countries, before the holiday, the prices of goods are reduced in order to sell as many of them as possible. Those. earn by increasing turnover. In our country, on the contrary, they try to earn at the expense of high prices. This is not a market economy. This is the use by monopolists of insufficient production of goods. Azerbaijan does not produce enough of these goods, although it is an exporter of hazelnuts,” Maharramli said.

He noted that Azerbaijan exports hazelnuts at a price of $6-7 per 1 kg, while the same product costs $12-13 on the domestic market. “If the price of hazelnuts in the domestic market were equal to the export price, then the consumer could buy it at a price of 10 manats per 1 kg. But there is a monopoly and there is no fight against it,” he said.

According to the economist, the prices of traditional consumer goods are inflated with the calculation. The fact is that the majority of the population buys nuts, hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios rarely (usually for the holidays) and in small quantities. The number of people who can afford to regularly buy these products is limited. But vegetables, people buy regularly. Therefore, businessmen want to make money by raising the price of vegetables.

“Potatoes, which are imported from Turkey, cost 33-38 gepiks in Turkish markets, while in our country they cost 1.3 manats. Quite recently, this potato was sold for 1.2 manats, but after the wholesalers raised the price, the retail price also increased by 10 kopecks. Cucumbers, which yesterday cost 1.8-2 manats, are now sold for 3.8 manats. This happened after the wholesalers doubled the price. The same applies to other vegetables,” Maharramli said, adding that monopolists buy agricultural products from farmers and peasants for next to nothing and sell them several times more expensive.

“The government is obliged to take the necessary measures to put an end to monopoly. And then farmers will have an incentive to produce more products. This is the only way to achieve stable and real prices on the market,” the expert concluded.