Pork price crisis ups demand for poultry, chicken added to price control list

Thailand’s pork price crisis is causing an increased demand for chicken, leading poultry and egg prices to surge. The Ministry of Commerce has now added chickens and chicken meat to their price control list. The ministry now mandates that chicken raisers with over 100,000 chickens, and slaughterhouses with the capacity for over 4,000 chickens a day, disclose their quantity, stocks, and sales costs each month.

The Central Committee on Prices of Goods and Services now requires all 55 domestic feed meal factories to list their sales costs, production volume, and stocks, as well as obtain approval from the International Trade Department, or ITD, before raising their products’ prices. The commerce minister thanked chicken farmers and producers who agreed to freeze their prices. He said the ITD has yet to approve higher prices for electric appliances.

The 51 items on the state price control list are primarily essential items that people use daily. 46 of the items are products, while five are services. Once chicken and chicken meat are approved, the number of items will be 52. The committee is extending price control on face masks, materials used to make face masks, products with hygienic alcohol, waste paper and recycled paper, for another year. The cabinet is also allocating 1.48 billion baht from the central budget to fund relief measures for consumers for three months.

Other foods on the state price control list include wheat flour, milk, vegetable oil, and pork.

Source: Bangkok Post