Give retailers a months' time before lowering price of cooking oil

GivSHAH ALAM - Mydin managing director Datuk Dr Ameer Ali Mydin said the government should wait at least a month before bringing down the price of five-kilogramme (kg) bottled cooking oil to RM34.70.

He said the new pricing would cause retailers to face losses.

"For cooking oil, Mydin alone holds stocks totalling RM3 million. If 5kg (oil) which is currently sold at RM38 was forced to be sold at RM34.70, we will face loses of RM300,000.

"The minister should inform about the new pricing a month after the announcement in September so that sellers could make plans in advance.

"Retailers like Mydin for instance will face problems. What are we going to do when they (government) give us a weeks' time until Aug 8 before setting the new prices, even though the stocks that we have now are sold at RM38," he told Sinar Harian on Tuesday.

He was commenting on the announcement made by Jihad Against Inflation special task force chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa that there will be a ceiling price for 5kg bottles of pure palm oil used for cooking starting Aug 8, with a maximum price of RM34.70.

In the meantime, Ameer said the same mechanism to control the price of cooking oil could not be the same as the method used to control the price of chicken.

"If it (price) just simply goes up and down, there will be an issue of lack of stock in the market and become a problem similar to the chicken issue.

"There needs to be a better mechanism to overcome the cooking oil price problem," he said.