Ministry to impose price ceiling to control Turkey’s rising meat prices

ANKARA

AA photo

The Food and Agriculture Ministry has decided to impose a price ceiling for red meat in a bid to control recent rises.

According to new price regulations announced by Minister Faruk Çelik on Feb. 9, the maximum price for a kilo of ground meat will be 32 Turkish Liras (around $11), while the maximum price of a kilo of diced meat will be 34 liras. 

A kilo of carcass meat with fat will be sold for no more than 21.8 liras, while a kilo of higher quality lean carcass will be no more than 23.2 liras. 

The changes will be reviewed after five to six months.

“The reason for these regulations is speculation that has caused producers to give up on production. Producers and breeders should be protected and speculation should be stopped,” he said, adding that the measure should not be considered an “intervention into the market” but rather a step to “coordinate the market.”

Butchers Union Head Fazlı Yalçındağ said the regulation would lead to the price of a kilo of red meat, which was around 25-26 liras, falling by around five liras. 

“New prices will be seen on price tags in one week,” Yalçındağ said. 

“We will have another meeting in five or six months. We want stability. We don’t want to hear the phrase ‘Meat prices have increased with the arrival of Ramadan’ anymore,” he added. 

According to figures from the Turkish Central Bank, the price of red meat rose by 21 percent in 2015. Central Bank Governor Erdem Başçı said at the end of last month that meat prices had an important share in Turkey’s rising consumer inflation rate. 

The biggest impact on yearly inflation, which was 9.58 percent in January, came from food prices, Başçı said.
The cabinet recently signed a decision allowing more meat to be imported in order to “block speculative moves” that are hiking prices. 

Çelik said on Feb. 2 that the decision would go into effect “very soon.”