Artificially high increase of prices for food and individual protection means requires urgent measures on state price regulation for essential goods, i.e. socially important foods and individual protection means. This is stated in an inquiry by OPPOSITION PLATFORM – FOR LIFE MP Serhiy Lovochkin to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

The politician said he had mentioned negative social impact of consumer price increase in his earlier inquiries to previous Cabinets. Still, no efficient and concrete steps aimed at hindering this trend have been taken. The prices kept increasing and rose by 2.6 times on average between 2014 and 2019.

The MP expressed concerns that the current surge in consumer prices may put most Ukrainian citizens on the brink of survival. Numerous media report that prices for popular vegetables (potatoes, cabbage, onions, carrots) went up by 35–128 percent, sugar by 8 percent, pasta by 9.5 percent, wheat cereals by 11 percent, buckwheat by 51 percent, flour by 5 percent, eggs by 6 percent. This trend is also confirmed by the data of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.

“Experts see no objective economic prerequisites for such price increase, since most of these foods are produced by Ukrainian enterprises, and the increase in costs due to the quarantine should not have led to such a rapid price rise,” the inquiry reads.

Lovochkin suggests paying special attention to fighting the rise of prices for individual protection means, mostly medical face masks, breathers, sanitizers, etc., which went up by 10–15 times.

“When the national economy is in a situation caused by the spread of the coronavirus epidemic and the threat of recession in the global markets, the negative social consequences of the price increase will be much broader than in previous years,” the MP said.