According to Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Salahuddin Ayub, mechanism for controlling the price of goods and fixing the price ceiling will be reviewed in the near future.
“Indeed we will review it in the near future, because it has been a year (fixing the maximum price),” he said at a press conference after the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living’s (KPDN) New Year Mandate Council 2023 in Putrajaya today.
The Federation of Malaysian Retail Dealers Association recently expressed its view that the government should re-evaluate the price control mechanism which is considered to be out of date and results in controlled goods such as eggs, sugar and cooking oil always being in short supply in the market.
The association also suggested that the government consider floating prices according to the market, but provide purchase coupons or discounts to the target group.
Regarding the ‘Payung Rahmah’ initiative which covers the Rahmah Basket, Rahmah Sales, Rahmah Cafe and Rahmah Package programs to reduce the cost of living, Salahuddin said the KPDN will focus its implementation on the extreme poor.
According to him, the Statistics Department’s data as of December 31, 2022 shows that there are 130,000 poor Heads of Households in the country.
In another development, he denied that there is no packet cooking oil in the market as claimed by some parties, but assured that KPDN officials will act immediately if there are specific complaints about the lack of supply.
Earlier in his speech, Salahuddin also announced a number of offers, among which the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) will give a 90 percent compound reduction from the original value of the compound on companies with a ‘dissolved’ status under the Companies Act 1965.
SSM will also continue to reduce the compound by 90 percent of the original compound value for habitual offenses under the Companies Act 2016, he said.
