Yesterday Ukraine’s Minister of Agriculture, Taras Kutoviy,
along with the head of the Antimonopoly Committee and head of State Service on
food safety and consumer protection signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, which among
other things, aims to protect consumers from food price hikes.
Ukraine’s slow move towards a free market economy recently included a trial abolition
of direct state regulation on prices for basic foodstuffs which simplified
business but left consumers exposed to food price increases either by market
economics or unfair competition.
The memorandum was signed in response to these concerns and
time will tell if they have just swapped one set of archaic legislation for another
with no real change.
Initial comments from the Minister are not particularly positive, “we have to
solve problems of price controls and unfair competition and ensure
quality goods and services at a reasonable price".
Question is, who decides what is a reasonable price?