Moldovan PM summons first meeting of working group to monitor price development

Chisinau, 24 January /MOLDPRES/-  Today Prime Minister Ion Chicu convened the first meeting of the working group for analysis and monitoring of price developments. Chicu informed that the group has the mission to follow the prices of the most important products and services, especially those with high social significance, the government's communication and protocol department has reported.

He said "The order on creation of the working group under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Serghei Pușcuța is signed, meant to monitor the evolution of market prices for socially important product groups. We will also monitor the evolution of the main macroeconomic indicators ”.

Chicu approached rising prices for a wide range of socially important products in January, including fuel prices. The working group will examine the effectiveness of national rules applied by regulators to understand what issues can be improved so as to be prevented cartel agreements and price increases.

The first topic was the development of fuel prices. He requested information from the ANRE representative.

ANRE director Ștefan Creanga informed the prime minister that 123 economic agents have a license for marketing petroleum products and we have 710 fuel stations in the country. In the sales structure 70.3% represents diesel, 20.8% - petrol and 8.9% - liquefied gas. ANRE checks only one parameter, observing the 10% annual rate of return on activity of the license holder. Creangă noted that the profitability set by the law can be easily avoided by the exaggerated increase of various administrative costs, and ANRE has no leverage to intervene.

ANRE informed that changing the regulatory approach was implemented from January 1, 2019, but the price mechanism by ANRE, previously applied, was more effective.

Ion Chicu asked the Competition Council management for information on the cartel agreements identified and sanctioned.

The representative of the Competition Council informed that CC is targeting the oil products market. CC intervened by collecting information to identify evidence of cartel agreements, but they are not found so far. CC knows issues indirectly proving that agreements may exist.

The prime minister was concerned about the efficiency of CC activity, which has a team of 130 specialists, and is not able to identify and effectively combat cartel agreements.

In another context, the premier asked Minister Anatol Usatii to submit information on progress of implementation of the action plan for reviving the interurban passenger services industry and increasing the quality and safety of services.

Usatîi informed that since 2013, when transport tariffs were not updated, the cost of fuel has increased 3 times. The costs of spare parts and repair services increased on the chain, and wages in the country doubled during this period. The age of the transport units involved in the interurban transport has increased, and now many obsolete units are on routes.

The industry is in poor condition and steps are needed to revive it and to encourage investments in transport units and professional drivers.

MEI has signed an Action Plan, approved by the licensed companies, which will increase the safety and quality of the transport services in three stages, until September 2020.

At the end of the meeting, the premier asked MEI, MF and ANRE to examine for a week the effects of the change of approach in the case of oil price regulation.

"I do not think it’s right to let the economic agents to set up prices for petroleum products. I do not want to influence the decision of the working group, but I urge you to do this analysis urgently and come up with proposals. The prices for diesel fell, the excise duty increased slightly, and the selling price of diesel has increased significantly. Please find where the traders are hiding a large part of income, “ he said.