A permanent secretariat to deal with cost of living issues to be established by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) and the Ministry of Economy. According to Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living, Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub, through the secretariat, a comprehensive action plan will be produced that includes short-term and long-term plans to deal with the issue. He said that the establishment of the secretariat was decided after a nearly hour-long meeting with the Minister of Economy, Rafizi Ramli at his ministry today. "KPDN is aware that for us to work on this question of increasing the cost of living, we cannot work alone, because the cost of living issue is a national agenda." "We agreed to create a permanent secretariat for these two ministries, KPDN and economy, which will at any time hold meetings, meetings, engagements, seminars, workshops and the like so that we can move forward more efficiently." "In addition to the involvement of these two ministries, the next step is to engage with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFs), the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Development and Local Government and also the 11 ministries that exist in the National Livelihood Action Council (NACCOL) are also involved." "This is for us to succeed in the plan to ensure that we can really produce a strategic plan of action to deal with the cost of living," he told the media after the Food Bank Donation Program from Syarikat Tamin to help flood victims here today. Explaining the secretariat further, he said that his party has drawn up short and long term plans, among them related to data exchange, looking at focus groups, looking at policies such as subsidies, education that is more focused on users "This is so that we can interact with each other so that there is no misunderstanding of communication between the relevant parties including the KPDN and the people in our effort to improve their standard of living," he said. Asked whether this secretariat will replace the duties and functions of the Jihad Team for Inflation, Salahuddin said, the matter has not been decided yet. He also did not detail the period during which the permanent secretariat will be established and function officially. "The secretariat will be led by the respective secretary-generals of KPDN and Ministry of Economy, in addition to the participation of the Department of Statistics and the Economic Planning Unit (EPU)," he said. While asked about the current state of the country's food supply, he informed that he received feedback from MAFs that the food supply so far until the Christmas celebration is sufficient. "KPDN will continue to monitor the stability of goods in the market and then monitor the price of the Christmas celebration price control scheme that was launched recently," he said.
