YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, NOYAN TAPAN. At the September 17 sitting, the RA State Commission on Protection of Economic Competition initiated proceedings in the aviation fuel, flour and rice markets based on the possible facts of keeping the pices unreasonably high or raising them. According to monitoring of the commission's staff, the dynamics of the sale prices of wheat flour are not in line with the dynamics of prices in international market. Salex Group and Manana Grain companies have a dominating position in the market. The Commission registered facts of anticompetition agreement in the flour market on July 22 during a discussion with the sector's economic entities. At that time the Commission warned the economic entities not to reach anticompetition agreements and established a period for eliminating the possible violations. As a result of the military operations launched in Georgia on August 8, a force majeure situation formed for Armenia'a market and there were problems with transportation of goods to Armenia. Based on this, the Commission postponed its decision on initiating proceedings until the situation is stabilized, however, by preliminary estimates, the fall of prices in Armenian market is not adequate to the fall of flour prices in international market. According to the Commission's press service, the monitoring revealed the raising of prices in the rice market as well. Kari Tov and Mokonat companies have a dominating position: they occupy 59.6% of the rice market. However, taking into account the fact that the growth of rice prices in Armenian market has widespread character, the Commission's proceedings will include studies of the behavior of the economic entities occupying at least 90% of the market. The Commission also decided to initiate proceedings for examination of prices in the aviation fuel market because there was a decline in aviation fuel prices in international market.

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