Price hikes before elections: check of facts

YEREVAN, March 31. /ARKA/. In early March, Armenian media raised alarm over the growing food prices, which they claimed jumped dramatically. Some experts blamed the rise on the upcoming parliamentary elections. Media reports claimed that  prices of those goods (bananas, sugar and chocolate) grew which are imported by business people nominated by the governing  Republican Party of Armenia as candidates for the April 2 elections..

Some experts warned that the prices would continue to grow because the businessmen have to bring back the money they would distribute as election bribes.

Novosti-Armenia news agency monitored prices for these goods in one of the chain stores for four weeks and concluded that the anxiety about the prices was somewhat exaggerated.

Thus, as of  March 10, 1 kg of granulated sugar cost 410 drams, that of bananas - 720 drams, and the price of a chocolate bar weighing about 150 was  370 drams. After a week the prices remained unchanged. 

Monitoring of the third week showed that bananas rose by 40 drams to 760 drams, while sugar in some stores, on the contrary, fell by 20 drams to 390 drams. And, finally, two days before the elections, the price of granulated sugar returned to the starting level of 410 drams per 1 kg, while bananas and chocolate fell by 25 drams to 735 and 345 drams respectively compared to the previous week. 

Thus, prices for granulated sugar and imported chocolate did not increase during the pre-election period, but for bananas they rose only by 5 drams to 735 drams. -0