The Fair Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) is con­cerned about the dras­tic in­crease in food items such as flour. As a re­sult, the Com­mis­sion in­tends to host a Vir­tu­al Meet­ing to analyse the pos­si­ble caus­es and so­lu­tions to these ris­ing prices.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try:

The un­for­tu­nate and sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in prices es­pe­cial­ly that of sta­ple food items such as wheat flour is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (“the Com­mis­sion”).

The Com­mis­sion is ful­ly aware of the re­port­ed mix of sup­ply and de­mand-side con­di­tions both ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal, which have giv­en rise to the wor­ri­some price in­creas­es. Nev­er­the­less, the Com­mis­sion wish­es to as­sure the gen­er­al pub­lic that con­sis­tent with the Fair Trad­ing Act, it re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the re­cent in­creas­es in prices in or­der to de­ter­mine whether in­creased prices are in any way a re­sult of an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices. Such prac­tices may in­clude but is not lim­it­ed to un­law­ful price-fix­ing, col­lu­sion among sup­pli­ers and abus­es by a mo­nop­oly pow­er, each of which may ad­verse­ly af­fect the dis­tri­b­u­tion and re­tail sale of com­modi­ties in­clud­ing that of flour.

Fur­ther, it is in this con­text that the Com­mis­sion is host­ing a Vir­tu­al Meet­ing with Stake­hold­ers in the Ship­ping and Re­lat­ed Ac­tiv­i­ties In­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is to be held on Thurs­day 28th Ju­ly 2022. At this Meet­ing the Com­mis­sion in­tends to fur­ther ex­am­ine the spe­cif­ic caus­es of ris­ing prices and to de­ter­mine whether any changes can be made in busi­ness op­er­a­tions in or­der to bring about any re­lief to con­sumers in these wor­ry­ing and un­usu­al times.

The Com­mis­sion al­so takes this op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind con­sumers that while the in­crease in flour prices is a cause for con­cern, con­sumers do have the pow­er to make lifestyle changes and choic­es to eat health­i­er and switch to al­ter­na­tive lo­cal prod­ucts wher­ev­er pos­si­ble.

Any in­quiries about this up­com­ing vir­tu­al ses­sion should be di­rect­ed to the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Com­mis­sion, Mr. Be­van Nar­i­nesingh us­ing the con­tact in­for­ma­tion be­low.