Food Prices Go Up Worldwide
The prices for food have recently increased not only in Russia but also worldwide. Although the comfort is poor, the Russians may console themselves by thinking that our country leads neither in food prices nor in growth rates.
For general lack of respective statistics, Russia could be compared to the EU as a very rough approximation. The rates of food price growth were about 7 percent in the first eight months of this year. The 12-month indicator will hardly differ significantly, as the food prices fell at the end of past year’s summer to early fall, but regained the previous height by New Year.
The tricky point is that similar to the better part of Europe, the prices in Russia surged in October, and the statistics for that month aren’t available yet.
Regardless, let’s take the prices for basic food that have been recently frozen by order of Russia’s government. In one of the Moscow supermarkets, the bread cost 13 rubles, a liter of milk cost 36 rubles, the oil price was 59 rubles/liter and ten eggs cost 48 rubles. In Europe, the prices are practically the same except the bread prices, but they don’t eat so much bread there.
At the same time, we are well ahead of the Baltic nations in terms of the food prices and have neared the prices of Britain, which are traditionally 13-percent higher than in Europe on average. But the prices are much higher in Ireland, Norway and Denmark.
And last but not least, the government’s decision to freeze prices, which has been called the legacy of Soviet past by quite a number of economists, appears to be in line with the global trend. Let alone Bangladesh, Venezuela, Egypt, Jordan, China and Morocco, even Japan’s biggest Aeon chain store froze the prices for 100 items, including the bread, till this year end.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 01, 2007
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