DUSHANBE, November 1, Asia-Plus — The antimonopoly directorate of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MoEDT) intends to study the situation having formed on markets in the country to find out the cause of cooking oil price hike in the country, Asia-Plus has learned from Ghafurjon Rasoulov, a spokesman for MoEDT.
Most likely, separate entrepreneurs dealing with delivery and realization of cooking oil have acted in collusion and raised the cooking oil prices artificially, the spokesman said.
“The ministry specialists are sure that separate private entrepreneurs have illegally created a monopoly of this basic food product on the market,” said Rasoulov, “Perpetrators will be revealed and punished.”
In the meantime, some residents of Dushanbe are of the opinion that making use of the cooking oil deficiency in Uzbekistan, Tajik oil-mills producing cooking (cotton) oil have removed their products to the neighboring republic, where the price of one liter of cotton oil is up to $4.00.
In Dushanbe, the price of one liter of the cotton now is between 7 somonis (equivalent to some $2) to 8 somonis (equivalent to some $2.3).
We will recall that in late October, the price of one liter of cotton oil in Dushanbe rose from 5 somonis to some 8 somonis, with similar price rises in other regions of the country.
According to some entrepreneurs, the rise in prices of the cotton oil in the country has been traced from cotton oil shortages in Uzbekistan, which provides the bulk of Tajik cotton oil imports.
Prices of vegetable oil imported from Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran have risen as well.
