‘The situation passes from panic mode to normalcy’: situation with price growth stabilises in Kazan

As the authorities assure citizens, it became possible to stabilise the situation with the rise in prices for socially important goods in Kazan and resolve their shortage registered in March-April 2022. Prices surged for sugar, onion, oil then. According to vice head of the city’s Executive Committee Ildar Shakirov, suppliers’ purchase price rose as a result of a stampede.

After talks between the authorities, retailers and suppliers, commodities started to be delivered everyday and “without fail.” Hosting many agricultural fairs is also designed for stabilisation, a higher demand for the same products was registered there too — the demand was met by selling products from warehouses of suppliers of the Agro-Industrial Complex.

Products for 266 million rubles were sold at spring fairs alone in Kazan. The fairs will resume from 10 September, the city administration of the Tatarstan capital claimed.

“There was registered a stampede in spring, almost everything on the shelves was stripped bare. Now the situation passed from the panic mode to normalcy. New production chains are set up in the non-food sector. Nature abhors a vacuum. There is underperformance compared to last year’s high indicators, but in general the market will restore, including thanks to new outlets in e-commerce at marketplaces,” claimed head of the Kazan Executive Committee Rustem Gafarov.

According to Shakirov, by the way, as a result of the development of logistic infrastructure in Kazan, the average delivery time in the city reduced from five days in 2021 to three days. In 2020-2021, the number of Tatarstan sellers at marketplaces increased from 321 to more than 23,000. In the first half of 2022, the number of such sellers rose by another 37% and has already surpassed 31,500.

To save commerce and food chains, the Kazan authorities tried to cancel a number of both federal and republican restrictions in 2022. So with the help of the federal and republican anti-crisis task force, the land tax rate was frozen, while the enterprises selling alcohol were permitted to neighbour educational institutions of the city.

The total cancellation of “COVID-19 restrictions” also facilitated the “revival of commercial demand,” said vice head of the city’s Executive Committee Ildar Shakirov. Also, the authorities separately mentioned the assistance with lowering the acquiring rate — it will stay till the end of August 2022 (Editor’s note: after receiving money via cashless payment in stores, a bank charges a 1,5-2% fee of the transaction sum).

At the same time, the Kazan authorities claimed that the difficulties commerce has faced this year are “unprecedented”: commodity turnover decreased in a number of categories by more than 40%, traffic in many shopping malls reduced by over 14%.