Why the price of potatoes will not rise to 50 hryvnias - the answer of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy
Kyiv • UNN
The First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy explained why the price of potatoes has stabilized at UAH 25-30. Imports from Poland and the Baltics are helping to curb speculative price increases.
There are no grounds for the price of potatoes to rise to 50 hryvnias, said First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Vysotsky during a briefing at the Media Center Ukraine, UNN reports.
Details
"Potatoes were really affected by the drought so badly that the harvest was significantly reduced compared to the previous year, and this was one of the factors that raised the price. At the same time, we see that it has been at this level - UAH 25 wholesale, UAH 30 retail - for 3-4 weeks and has not changed. We believe that it will not change further," Vysotsky said.
He explained that, due to various circumstances, there are no grounds for raising the price of potatoes to UAH 50.
"There are no grounds to have potatoes at 50 hryvnias for several reasons. The first is that the current price of 25-30 hryvnias is already absolutely sufficient to cover the cost of production even in the face of this decrease in yield. The second is the price that allows for imports. We have an open economy, an open market, we export surpluses, and when there is a deficit, we import, which is absolutely normal. And we can see that when the price reached 25 hryvnias, potatoes were imported from Poland and the Baltic states. These are insignificant volumes compared to our production, but these several tens of thousands of tons are enough to stabilize the speculative price increase and stop it," he emphasized.
At the same time, according to Taras Vysotsky, there will be no reduction in the price of potatoes, and their price may rise slightly in the spring.
