Chisinau, November 5 (Infotag). Tudor Ghelici, a man of business and Chairman of the Moldova Mea [My Moldova] Association, has stated he stands ready to gratuitously give his sunflower oil factory into the Government’s hands for 1 year so as to let ministerial bureaucrats show the nation how one can produce the oil for a price of 10 lei [some USD 0.85] a liter.

About a couple of weeks ago, Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev stated he had felt doubt that retail prices on vegetable oil could really soar as much as 2-fold, even in the post-drought conditions. Tarlev hinted that producers had simply availed themselves of the rare chance to push up prices to such heights, and he demanded relevant state structures to examine how realistic the new prices on foodstuffs are.

So, Tudor Ghelici decided to respond to the Prime Minister in the following extravagant way. He convened a news conference in Infotag today and stated, “The Ministry of Economy and Trade is staffed with many good specialists who certainly know how to count. So, let one of them become the director of my factory that is operated by 7 workers and that processes 200 tons of sunflowers a month, and then this person will show us in deeds not in words how he can produce cheap but high-quality oil.”

In his words, the situation in the Moldovan agriculture and food processing industry has been deteriorating each coming year. In 2006, for instance, sunflowers used to be purchased at prices of 2.4-2.5 lei a kilogram. And this year, the purchasing prices are minimum twice higher, though the oil content in the seeds is some 15%-16% – 2.5 times lower than the usual level of some 35%-37%.

“Presently, the Government should work out a sound system of donations for the farm sector. And I guess the State should be backing not the wine sub-sector alone, but also animal husbandry and poultry breeding”, said Ghelici.

The businessman believes that what the Government can really do and should do is prohibit supermarkets’ selling first-necessity foodstuffs at markups of over 10%. He is convinced that the State should offer a helping hand to food producers. Without it, no force will be able to curb food prices, he said.