THERE IS NO BASELESS INFLATION AT THE MOMENT IN ARMENIA,
CHAIRMAN OF STATE COMMISSION ON PROTECTION OF ECONOMIC
COMPETITION SAYS
17-05-2008 16:30:00 | Armenia | Economy
YEREVAN, MAY 17, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA State Commission on
Protection of Economic Competition has not received any calls
about abuse of a competitive position, the Commission's chairman
Ashot Shahnazarian said during a talk with reporters on May 16.
According to him, daily monitoring of prices has been done
in 30 commodity groups since December, which showed that there
has been a growth in prices of some commodities but this growth
makes only 1-2%. Out of these commodities, the prices of rice
and pork only grew by 30%.
In response to the question about the cause of inflation in
all commodity groups, the commission chairman replied that as a
result of an international economic crisis, a growth in prices
of goods of social importance has been observed in all
countries. The task of the commission is to keep an eye so that
the inflation rate in Armenia will not exceed that in
international market. In particular, there was excessive
inflation in butter and vegetable oil markets in December 2006
but the situation improved after 40 economic entities had been
fined.
A. Shahnazarian said that some changes were made thanks to
the economic policy adopted by the new government. Particularly,
as a result of improvement of customs administration, there has
been a decline in customs values, and now the commission is
going to find out why, in particular, prices of butter and
vegetable oil have not declined under conditions of a fall in
the customs values of these foodstuffs.
Responding to the question about whether he considers as
sufficient the amounts of fines imposed on the companies to have
made violations, A. Shahnazarian said that the use of large
fines may have a negative impact on business. He expressed a
hope that the parliament will soon approve the legislative
initiative passed by the Republican Party of Armenia in first
reading. The legislative initiative envisages that the whole
profit made as a result of a baseless increase of a price under
conditions of unfair competition and an anticompetition
agreement shall be transferred to the state budget.