The Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (AZRK) of Kazakhstan recommended to suspend trading on commodity exchanges in the country amid massive protests.
“Taking into account the introduction of a state of emergency in the country and temporary regulation of prices for certain exchange commodities, the Exchange Committee recommended to suspend exchange trading on commodity exchanges,” the ministry said in a statement. It is noted that the issue of resuming trading will be considered after the stabilization of the situation in the country.
This week in Kazakhstan for six months set the maximum prices for gasoline, diesel fuel and liquefied gas at filling stations. For the same period, tariffs for housing and communal services were frozen. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also instructed to introduce state regulation of prices for socially significant food products, including bread, flour, potatoes, milk, eggs, buckwheat, pasta and salt.
A twofold rise in the price of liquefied gas since the beginning of the year led to protests in the Mangistau region in the west of the republic. The authorities argued that gas prices rose due to the transition to exchange pricing. Despite the government’s price reduction to 50 tenge, or $ 0.11 per liter (lower than it was before the rise in price), the protests intensified and in a number of cities escalated into riots and clashes with the police, already under political slogans.
AZRK suspected 180 gas companies of price collusion. The department has begun checking entrepreneurs, most of whom are located in the Mangistau region. Four companies have already received fines ranging from 2 million tenge (350,000 rubles) to 160 million tenge (27.7 million rubles).
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