"Today the state pricing policy is based mainly on contractual market prices," the ministerial industry department noted.
"Prices on metal products are immune to state regulation and are set upon agreement between the involved parties with account for demand and supply. The state has no legislative right to meddle in pricing relations between independent economic entities," the ministerial communique reads.
The state can only use methods of indirect regulation, the ministry said. They are customs and tariff instruments, adjustable tariffs on the services of natural monopolies, mechanisms of antimonopoly legislation.
Specifically, in a bid to cut the export of scrap metal, the federal bodies of power are considering reduction of the number of points overseeing such export on the customs border.
Earlier, the Antimonopoly Policy Ministry ordered a price reduction for the major metal makers - the Magnitogorsk Metal Plant and Severstal. They appealed against it in court. In the end of May the Moscow Court of Arbitration said they were right. The Federal Antimonopoly Service filed an appeal against the court ruling. On August 18 this week, the Arbitration Appellate Court No. 9 (Moscow) dismissed the FAS appeal. Thus, the court ruling annulling the FAS order has become effective.
Meanwhile, the growth of prices on ferrous metal products has been stabilized and prices have even gone down on some of them.
