Thailand
Thailand: State retains price control on 51 items
The government has retained its price control on 51 products and services while pledging to come up with more stringent measures on four products including vegetables and fruits, as well as imported steel bars and DDGS (distiller’s dried grains with solubles).
The meeting of the Central Committee on the Prices of Goods and Services chaired by Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit yesterday decided to maintain the price control list for 51 items, 46 of which are products and five services. The list would be later proposed for cabinet approval.
The price control list covers essential items for daily use such as food, consumer products, farm-related products (fertilisers, pesticides, animal feed, tractors and rice harvesters), construction materials, paper, petroleum and medicines.
Listed foods include garlic, rice paddy, milled rice, corn, eggs, cassava, wheat flour, powdered/fresh milk, sugar, vegetable/animal oil and pork, while listed services include delivery services for online businesses, agriculture-related services, medical services and other healthcare services, and payment services at service points.
According to Mr Jurin, the Central Committee also yesterday agreed to tighten its grip on DDGS, a byproduct of bioethanol fermentation, which uses dry milling technology for starch-rich grains such as corn, wheat and barley; three steel items — steel bar, tin-plated steel and chrome steel; music copyright, and vegetables and fruits.
Traders are required to provide information of DDGS imports to responsible authorities electronically, while steel bar traders need to report how much was imported, the production volume, sales volume and remaining stocks on a monthly basis.
Imported tin-plated steel and chrome steel, meanwhile, will need to meet new standards of the Thai Industrial Standard Institute.
For music copyright, rights owners need to provide additional details such as the lyricist’s name and melody and the expiry date of the contract in a move to protect copyright owners.
In addition, the committee has imposed new measures on fruits and vegetables comprising tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, cabbages and nine other fruits including rambutan, mango, durian, mangosteen, longan, longkong, lychee, orange and pineapple. Traders are required to display the daily buying prices of such agricultural products at 8am. Daily buying price displays will allow farmers to make a decision before harvesting their products.
Meanwhile, Mr Jurin said the meeting also agreed to set up a sub-committee to consider an appropriate structure for the gross profit or commission fee applied to food vendors by online food delivery platforms to prevent operators from profiteering. It will be tasked with finding the best solutions to ensure fairness to all parties. The director-general of the Internal Trade Department would be the sub-committee chairman.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2132979/state-retains-price-control-on-51-items