Market skeptics on consumer price increase (Economy)
Samtse, January 28: Despite lavish increase in salary of the government employees, the sellers in Samtse said they would not increase retail prices of the daily consuming goods, as the department of trade prescribes to do so.
But the sellers are unaware if the prices of the finished goods are raised by the producers, which seems obvious owing to the pressure on them to raise the salary of the employees. They were also skeptics about the prices of the locally produced rice and vegetable, whose prices depend on production quantity and demand in the market.
Yet, the employees are worried that retailers would increase the prices of products without price tags. The concern is higher among the officers of lower rank, whose income gap with high ranking officers has increased substantially.
The department of trade has already issued a notification to the retailers to refrain from increasing the price of commodities but is yet to deploy a price assessment team to market. Bhutan News Service