Vice Minister of Trade: No tomatoes in shops? Buy cucumbers

There are notably less quality vegetables and fruits on store shelves now.

Sometimes it is impossible to find some of them at all. At a press-conference journalists have asked Vice Minister of Trade Iryna Narkevich about the reasons for that, “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus” writes.

- On my way to the conference I visited 3 corner-shops, there are no tomatoes in any of them. What is done in order to solve the problem of shortage of some goods, and when it would be possible to solve this problem completely?

- One can eat a cucumber, – Iryna Narkevich recommended. – The traffic system in Minsk is well-developed. (…) It is easy to buy a ticket, it’s really not expensive, you can travel to a different part of the city, to a different shop, and buy this tomato you are lacking. (…) You certainly want to buy everything in a corner-shop, it is sensible. There are basic consumer goods. And tomatoes are probably goods of prime necessity now. Do you eat tomatoes every day or not? But a person can find a tomato he needs, as he needs exactly this tomato today. Go to a different shop on your way home from your office, the shop where there are plenty of tomatoes. You should not bring up a topic of goods shortage, when there are no tomatoes in three shops. What else is lacking?

- Egg-plants.

- According to our laws, we should have a universal range of goods in every corner shop. It is possible that there are no egg-plants in a corner shop. But it is a usual situation, not that egg-plants have disappeared now. I visited our shops, there were egg-plants. That’s not because I visit these shops and they saw my face and put an egg-plant to a counter. Now the situation is reminding the period of perestroika, adaptation. Do we want to have shortage of goods? No. So we are doing our best to check these items with wholesale traders.

- When the situation is going to stabilize?

- How can I tell you that? It depends on many factors. What can I as a Vice Minister tell you about that? It depends on the economic constituent for today, it is pegged to the currency basket. (…) I do not know how the world crisis and the situation in Russia [will evolve]. There are many factors. We do not live on the moon and we are not isolated, we also depend on goods deliveries.