Why is milk powder not found in the market?

According to the report of Economy Online, quoted by ISNA, since last year and following the measures taken to reform the foreign exchange policies, the process of providing medicine in the country was formed with the currency of 28,500 Tomans; In the meantime, for some reason, medical equipment and powdered milk still receive 4,200 tomans currency, so that the ground for changing currency policies in these products is also provided.

In this regard, at the end of last year, following the freeing of the exchange rate and the created rate difference, the registration of orders in the field of health products was disrupted; In such a way that in the registration of new orders, the product groups were changed and were included in the currency group of 40,000 Tomans, and along the way, it took more than a month and a half to modify these product groups to allocate the currency of 4,200 Tomans.

According to Dr. Sajjad Esmaili – advisor to the head of the Food and Drug Organization, after the follow-up of the Food and Drug Organization to modify the product groups, “the process of allocating currency and taking steps to supply raw materials also took about a month and reached almost June this year. ». Therefore, according to the authorities, taking into account the non-allocation of foreign exchange for dry milk from March of last year to June of this year, the process of providing and allocating currency for this product was officially delayed by about four hours, and as a result, it created shortages.

The smoke of sanctions in the eyes of children

Of course, the story of supplying milk powder did not end there and according to Dr. Esmaili – the advisor to the head of the Food and Drug Organization, “the banks that work with milk powder companies in our country to transfer foreign currency are European banks, which unfortunately sanctioned our country in June this year and This sanction added to the cause and after 10 million euros were provided by the Central Bank to supply the raw material of powdered milk, the money was blocked in the European Bank due to the sanctions, and after a month of follow-up, the deposited money was finally returned. » Finally, the combination of these factors caused a shortage of powdered milk in the country from around July this year.
Shortage of 25 million cans of powdered milk and the story of emergency import recall

Dr. Esmaili explained to ISNA in this context: “For example, when a medicine is in short supply, to compensate for its shortage, at least twice the previous stock in the market must be provided so that the market is psychologically saturated. It is the same in the field of powdered milk, and based on this, we had a deficit of about 25 million cans of powdered milk, and after solving the currency problems and supplying it, we held meetings with the producers.

In this regard, he pointed to the time-consuming and lengthy production process and the producers’ announcement that they would produce five million cans of milk powder in the time period required by the Food and Drug Organization, and emphasized: “It is clear that this amount of production could not compensate for the shortage of four to five Have the last month. Of course, following the meeting held with the producers, they were aware of the process that happened in the currency supply process and are also aware of the problems.”

He continued in this regard: “On this basis, we announced that we will provide the rest of the market’s needs through an urgent import call, and we will stop importing wherever the producers declare their readiness to produce.” For this reason, the import call was made. The main producers of powdered milk in the country, who supply 90% of the market, participated in the import call, and the minutes of the meeting are also available. Therefore, the Food and Drug Organization had no choice but to call for urgent imports in order to meet the needs of the market.”

The adviser to the head of the Food and Drug Organization emphasized to ISNA: “We have announced that the import will be until the market is saturated; Like the story of the shortage of antibiotics last year, in order to compensate for the shortage, in addition to domestic production, help was also taken from imports, and now we have no more imported antibiotics for almost 9 months.

The import is intermittent
Distribution of 4 million cans of powdered milk in the next 2 weeks

Emphasizing once again that the foreign exchange problems have been resolved and producers have seriously entered the field and increased their production, Esmaili said to Isna: “I declare once again that the import of powdered milk is limited, intermittent and short-term and It will be until the market is saturated. Currently, its first shipment, which includes about 200,000 cans of milk powder, has arrived at the customs and is undergoing sampling and quality tests. It will be.”

The adviser to the head of the Food and Drug Organization also told ISNA: Raw materials for domestic production are also available in the warehouses for at least the next four months, and this promises that with the stabilization of the supply and transfer of currency, we will be able to have more than six months of stock in baby formula. .

In the final part of his speech, Esmaili stated that the necessary forecasts for the supply of regular milk powder have been made in the coming months and reiterated that there is currently no problem in terms of the supply of milk powder, and considering the supply of this product from two domestic production routes and Imports will soon meet the needs of the market.