Special committee to start work on stabilizing prices next year

KOTA KINABALU (Dec 17): The special committee set up to look into the stabilization of prices of goods in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan is now finalizing the Terms of Reference (TOR) and is set to commence work early next year.

Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali said the ministry, as the secretariat of the special committee, is committed to ensuring that it can be mobilised next year.

“I don’t want to be ambitious and say that we can resolve all the issues immediately. We need to take short-term, medium-term and long-term approaches as the issue of price disparity is not new for Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan.

“If we cannot completely standardise (prices of goods), we hope to stabilise the price,” he said.

Speaking to reporters when met at the Sabah Street Fashion Show 2023 programme here on Sunday, Armizan disclosed that the committee will work with researchers from universities especially Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) to find a comprehensive mechanism to address the issue.

According to him, the role of public university researchers is very important in outlining a strategy to address the issue.

“We are not only looking at the initiatives of the federal government and the state government, but we will also involve universities, especially UMS and Unimas as they have experts that we can discuss together to outline the strategy and mechanism of how we mobilise this committee to ease the burden of the people in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan,” he said.

Regarding the Sabah Street Fashion Show 2023 programme, Armizan said it is the best platform to allow local fashion designers to highlight their creativity, especially modern batik clothing with Sabah’s ethnic and cultural motifs.

He also called on local fashion designers, especially in Sabah, to take full advantage of the government’s policies related to the use of batik by producing more batik clothing products, thus empowering the campaign to buy locally made goods.

Armizan also called on local fashion designers and local products producers to collaborate with the ministry in the organization of a buy local product program.

“I invite all local designers in Sabah to join the campaign in September which will be held in conjunction with Malaysia Day. We need your input on what is the niche market and how we can improve on the program,” he said.