BUSINESS | 16:54 / 29.08.2024
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Price inflation in pharmacies results in 5.4 billion UZS in unjustified earnings

Since the beginning of the year, the Competition Committee has identified price inflation issues in 473 pharmacies.

During inspections prompted by reports of exceeding reference prices submitted through the Fair Tech system, 49,400 violations were discovered at 133 wholesale and 340 retail points. The total unjustified earnings amounted to 5.4 billion UZS.

More than a third of this amount (1.9 billion UZS) was concentrated in Tashkent, where 71 establishments issued 17,200 receipts with inflated prices.

Second place went to Namangan region with 1.01 billion UZS, where violations were found in 44 pharmacies. Surkhandarya rounded out the top three, with 7 establishments earning 914 million UZS through price inflation.

The highest number of pharmacies with violations was found in Tashkent region (111). However, the total income from inflated prices in this region was only 39 million UZS.

The fewest number of violating points were found in Khorezm — 5 pharmacies and 10 million UZS. Kashkadarya had a discrepancy of 18.8 million UZS due to price inflation.

Lists of pharmacies that sold medications at inflated prices are published on the committee’s official pages. Appropriate measures are taken against these establishments.

In October 2022, the president signed a decree to ensure the quality of medicines. According to the document, when registering a receipt in the Soliq app, prices are compared in real time with retail reference prices.

If inflated markup is detected during the comparison, a signal is sent to the consumer protection authority for verification. Failure to indicate the full cost of medicines on the receipt is considered a violation of trading rules.

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