DILI, 30 march 2022(TATOLI)- The Coordinating minister for economic affairs (MCAE) Joaquim Amaral has committed that the Government will take the strategic steps to overcome the problem of rising food prices in the market in the short time.
Minister of MCAE Joaquim Amaral said, the food prices including the price of fuel and cooking oil in the market are increasing in Timor-Leste because the producing country faced the conflict and that is happening in all countries in the world.
“We will continue to monitor the situation in the market. Although, we still have not taken some steps on the issue of increasing the price of basic necessities,” Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Joaquim Amaral, told reporters at the Ministry of finance’s office in Aitarak-laran, Dili, on tuesday.
He added that, in the short time, the Government will take some steps to intervene in the markets to not scale up the prices of the basic necessities in Timor Leste. At the moment, the Government already purchased the rice from Vietnam.
“The price of cooking oil is increasing, and as a result, the producer country also runs out of the raw material. Therefore, let us buy the local coconut oil in the market. For the palm oil sector, most of us import cooking oil from other countries, compared to producing coconut oil,” he said.
In this situation, the Minister Joaquim Amaral explained, consumers had to reduce the cooking oil and begin to buy the coconut oil in the local market across Timor–Leste.
In this opportunity, MCAE calls on the national and international companies which are running the business activities in the country not to take this opportunity to increase the basic necessity prices.
Previously, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Timor-Leste (CCI-TL) and the institutional representative of businesses and Private sector had agreed to cooperate with the Government in dealing with rising food prices in Timo–Leste.
Responding to the increase in cooking oil prices in Timor-Leste, the owner of JACINTO Supermarket Clarisia Lay, takes the positive side and will coordinate with several other entrepreneurs to start investing in local coconut oil for sale in local markets in the territory of Timor–Leste.
Related news:CCI- TL: The cooking oil supply will run out in the next two months
Journalist: Camilio de Sousa
Editor: Rafy Belo
