The transition to new methods of management, planning and economic stimulation of industrial production is conditioned by the necessity of conformity of prices to their economic basis - cost.Prices for products of the iron ore industry, currently in force, are, as a rule, lower than their planned cost price. As a result, a large number of enterprises and the entire iron ore industry as a whole are planned unprofitable. “Prices should increasingly reflect the socially necessary costs of labor, to ensure reimbursement of production and circulation costs and a certain profit for each normally operating enterprise.” The organization of true economic calculation requires an accurate measure of costs and results. In the conditions of commodity economy such a measure can only be the price corresponding to the cost.

The value of mineral deposits is determined differently in different socio-economic formations. If under capitalism it is determined by the amount of profit that can provide the development of the deposit for the entire period of its exploitation and the possibility of capitalization of this profit, then in the conditions of socialist economy the value of the deposit is determined by the efficiency of its development in terms of meeting the needs of the national economy in this type of mineral.