YEREVAN, JANUARY 10, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan chaired a consultation January 10 to discuss the price increase of separate products in the country and the salutations of possible mitigation of those increases, the President’s Office said.

Vice PM, minister of international economic integration and reforms Vache Gabrielyan, Chief of Staff of the President’s Office Armen Gevorgyan, CB president Arthur Javadyan, minister of economic development and investments Suren Karayan, agriculture minister Ignati Arakelyan, chief advisor to the president Aram Gharibyan, chief of the presidential oversight service Hovhannes Hovsepyan, head of the state revenue committee Vardan Harutyunyan, chairman of the state commission for the protection of economic competition Artak Shaboyan were present at the consultation.

The President stressed he expects those in-charge to carry out strict monitoring of price increases.

In addition to presenting reasons of the price increases, the President demanded to present solutions aimed at mitigating the consequences of the price increases and always present to the public the processes in the consumer market.

“Dear colleagues, I hope that along with New Year holidays who continued implementing your official duties, namely that you continues to monitor the market and the processes in this market. Recently, price fluctuations of certain products in the consumer market became the topic of wide public discussions and concerns. This is why in my December 12 interview I touched upon this issue, and the responses from you were showing that these fluctuations were firstly associated with price fluctuations of those products in the international market. But almost a month has passed, and you had the chance to scrutinize this process. Now I will attentively listen to the analysis of each of you. We will clarify the reasons”, the president said.

“We have complete set of tools to study the activities of dominant businesses, and we have numerous tools to clarify if fluctuations are really the result of objective processes, or the reason of the businessmen’s greed”, he said.

The President mentioned that if indeed the price increases have an objective reason, then the government must mitigate the consequences.

“I see the possibilities for this, and you, I am sure are more sharp-sighted than me in these issues”, the president said.

The officials presented reports on the price increases – analysis, proposals of mitigating the consequences, results of monitoring and others. President Serzh Sargsyan issued instructions to the government officials with the results of the consultation.

The President tasked the government to list the socially significant products. To continuously study the dynamics of prices of these products, present objective and subjective factors of price changes, assess the risks of inflation and propose actions for mitigating the increases.

The President also tasked to present mitigation options for those socially important products the prices of which were increased due to tax or legislative changes.