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Published on December 10, 2007

The task of curbing price rises has been handed to Yanyong Phuangrach, director-general of the Internal Trade Department, and he has come up with a brilliant idea.

Chink! Chink!

The department is planning to promote the use of coins as it has found that rising prices are partly caused by lazy retailers who can't be bothered to carry enough change.

So when customers buy items with a price in baht and satang, vendors never have low-denomination coins for change, and they round up the price.

For instance, if the item is Bt2.75, the buyer is forced to pay Bt3 because the seller doesn't have change, so the price is unnecessarily hiked by 25 satang, thwarting the Commerce Ministry's attempt to curb price rises by forcing manufacturers to freeze their ex-factory prices.

So the ministry is to ask the Treasury Department to produce more satang coins to try and ease the problem.

"These days even a burglar would complain if you only had satang coins," said Yanyong.

He said the producer of Mama instant noodles had applied to increase its price by Bt1 per pack instead of so many satang on the grounds that nobody would have any satang.

On December 26, the Commerce Ministry will sign a memorandum of understanding with the agencies involved to promote the use of satang coins to curb inflation.

Now, if the ploy is effective, the central bank may have something to learn. Mm?

Petchanet@yahoo.com