Russians support state control of food prices

Vast majority of Russians believe that only the state should establish and regulate food prices, annual issue of "Russian Monitoring of Economic Situation and Population Health", conducted by the Higher School of Economics, says. Moreover, 40% of the country's citizens are not even ready to entrust business structures with organizing garbage disposal.

Russians also believe that the state should provide medical services and jobs, build roads, schools, kindergartens, medical facilities and carry out other functions that affect interests of citizens, while only 1-3% of the population recognize that private companies have priority in various fields.

In an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, vice-rector of RANEPA, Alexander Safonov, noted that people become more interested in prices regulation during period of crisis. "Rosstat figures show that the real income of citizens continues to drop, and an attempt to make the state regulate food prices is a natural reaction," he explained.

"But the situation is pretty difficult. On the one hand, the population wants to have cheap products, but on the other hand - strengthening of state control will lead to the fact that business will begin to experience additional pressure and some products will simply dissappear," he said.

Yury Yudenkov, professor at the Department of Finances, Money Circulation and Credits of RANEPA, agreed that as soon as the state will have bigger control over prices regulation, the assortment in stores will be significantly reduced. "The state should not pressure business, the state should help it," he stressed.