Taskforce to Prevent Hoarding of Gov’t-Listed Goods

EghtesadOnline: Minister of Industries, Mining and Trade Mohammad Shariatmadari unveiled on Saturday the list of products included in the drive called “Intensified Fight Against Hoarding and Stashing” in a letter to the heads of ‘Tazirat’ Organization (a judiciary-affiliated oversight body dealing with trade offenses), Jamal Ansari, and Consumers and Producers Protection Organization, Mahmoud Navvabi.

News ID: ۷۸۳۴۵۰

29 July 2018

The list includes a wide range of products, including wheat, barley, rice, field corn, soy meal, pulses, oilseeds, vegetable oil, sugar, butter, red meat, chicken, eggs, milk powder, home appliances, freezers, washing machines and TVs, spare parts, rubber, print paper, washing powder and construction material, IRNA reported.

The items include a category titled “production raw materials, without further details.

Shariatmadari appointed Navabi and Ansari, as well as his commercial affairs deputy, Hassan Younes Sinaki, to the newly-founded taskforce on July 13, according to Financial Tribune.

According to the minister, the taskforce will help maintain market balance by supervising over imported commodities or ones produced using imported raw material purchased using subsidized foreign exchange rates and prevent disruptive activities such as hoarding and stashing.

The minister also called on others, including the abovementioned bodies, public organizations, producers’ unions and associations, and businesspeople, to help realize the above objectives.

According to President of the Chamber of Guilds Ali Fazeli, withholding products from the market is a punishable offense, and it is the task of supervisory bodies to monitor producers and distributors, and prevent violations.

However, he said the term “hoarding” is not suitable for describing the current withholding of products by certain producers and distributors. He attributed abstinence from selling, which is different from hoarding in that the latter means refusing to sell a product for it to become more expensive, to the uncertainty about replacing the sold goods with new goods in the current uncertain state of the Iranian market.

Iran’s market has been going through a rough patch as the value of rial fell to an unprecedented low over a very short period of time following, among other developments, the US decision to back out of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers and reimpose sanctions on Iran’s economy.