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Effective next month, fast food operators will be restricted to a 10-20-per-cent increase in a bid to curb inflation and consumers' costs of living. The move is aimed at ensuring that inflation remains under the ministry's target of 6.6-6.9 per cent this year.

Among the 373 products in the ministry's inflation-calculation basket, ready-to-eat food has the highest proportional weight, accounting for 17 per cent.

The country's inflation rate was 6.5 per cent during the first three quarters.

Internal Trade Department director-general Yangyong Phuangrach said food-court enterprises and ready-to-eat food operators had to lower their retail prices an average of Bt5 a dish, because of lower costs as a result of declining oil prices.

The costs of many agricultural products and raw materials for food production, including vegetable oil, meat and fresh food, have decreased because of the falling oil price, he said.

At present, prices at food courts are between Bt25 and Bt40 a dish. The ministry will ask retail food enterprises to lower their prices an average of Bt5.

The average cost of producing normal ready-to-eat food at food courts must be about Bt25 a dish, Yangyong said. Production costs for operators outside of modern trade must be Bt15 to Bt25 a dish.

Many modern traders, including Carrefour, Makro and Big-C Supercentre, have agreed to the ministry's request that they control their retail prices.

Yangyong said the ministry was also planning to open permanent shops around the country, to sell cheap-priced food and consumer goods as way of helping reduce the cost of living.

These Blue Shops will sell low-priced goods for people on low incomes. The ministry will coordinate with the Public Warehouse Organisation and other trade associations, such as garment and shoe producers, to offer goods at lower prices.

The shops will be set up in many provinces, he said.

As another measure to reduce the burden on consumers, the ministry will meet animal-feed producers tomorrow to ask them to lower their retail prices following a drop in the cost of their raw materials. It is hoped the move will help curb the price of meat by lowering cattle farmers' production costs.