Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Saturday said high consumer product prices were the result of the massive flood last year, and ordered the Commerce Ministry to speed up expansion of the “Blue Flag” program to sell inexpensive consumer goods to help low-income earners.
The premier, on her weekly program “Yingluck Government Meets the People,” said that the flood crisis of last year was the major factor that caused high prices of consumer products.
She said that consumer goods prices were lower when compared with the same month last year but the flood had forced many factories to halt their operations, while many distribution centers could not deliver the products, eventually causing prices to increase as demand was much higher than the supply.
However, she expressed confidence that the high prices of food and consumer products would return to normal by June this year.
Ms Yingluck said she has ordered the Commerce Ministry to speed up the expansion of the “Blue Flag” program to sell consumer goods at low prices assisting low-income earners, and expected every community to have one Blue Flag shop or stall starting this month.
The ministry of commerce and relevant offices would implement measures to ensure that prices of consumer goods were reasonable, particularly those of eggs and palm cooking oil, said the premier.
The prime minister said the government believed the rise of world oil prices would be only short term and would not intervene in domestic oil prices, but measures would be taken to ease the impact on the public.
