Retailers Failing to Use Price Tags Will Be Fined

EghtesadOnline: Guild inspectors have been tasked with initiating legal proceedings and imposing fines, according to regulations, on business outlets that fail to inscribe prices on their products' packaging, the head of Tehran Guild Chamber said.

News ID: ۷۴۹۲۲۲

18 December 2019

Qasem Noudeh Farahani also told Fars News Agency that most complaints filed by people against businesses and service providers are about missing price tags.

“Absence of price tags would lead to charges of profiteering against the business owner,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.

The official said that compared to a few years ago, more and more shopkeepers and businesses are using price tags after fines were exacted for not observing the law.

Runaway inflation in Iran in recent months has led to an inordinate rise in prices of consumer goods.

The overall Consumer Price Index (using the Iranian year to March 2017 as the base year) stood at 187.8 in the Iranian month ending Nov. 21, indicating a 1.6% rise compared with the month before, latest data released by the Statistical Center of Iran show.

The consumer inflation registered a year-on-year increase of 27% in the month compared with the similar month of last year.

The average goods and services CPI in the 12-month period ending Nov. 21 increased by 41.1% compared with last year’s corresponding period. SCI had put the annual inflation rate for the preceding Iranian month, which ended on Oct. 22, at 42%.

The index registered a year-on-year increase of 27% for urban areas and 27.3% for rural areas compared with the similar month of last year.

The overall CPI reached 187 for urban households and 192 for rural households, indicating a month-on-month increase of 1.5% and 1.8% for urban and rural areas, respectively.

SCI put urban and rural 12-month inflation for the month under review at 40.3% and 45.1% respectively.

Last month, price drops were registered in only one out of 12 groups of the basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households, namely “communications” compared with the month before.

Add to inflation the recent jump in gasoline price, which had a domino effect on prices of consumer goods and services.

Last month, the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company announced that gasoline has been rationed and prices raised by at least 50%.

Private car owners can buy 60 liters of subsidized gasoline every month with a fuel card for 15,000 rials (about 12 cents) per liter, up 50% (in prices). Additional purchases (maximum 250 liters a month) will cost 30,000 rials (23 cents) per liter, up 200%.

Central Bank of Iran's Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati estimates that the direct inflationary effect of gas price hike stands at around 2.5% and its indirect impact at 4% over the next year, IRNA reported.

Independent economic observers say the inflationary effect may be higher than CBI's estimate.