While increases in food prices were affected by international factors it gives people the opportunity to further support the drive to boost local food production by buying local, the Trade and Industry Ministry said on Friday.
In a release, the ministry said it noted discussions in several areas on the impact of covid19 on food prices worldwide. It said the monthly food inflation data from Central Bank indicated spikes and dips in food price inflation in different parts of the year.
The release said covid19 led to increases in food prices internationally and that affected prices on some food items because of quarantines, mobility and physical distancing measures, disruptions in global food supply chains and processing facilities, increases in shipping rates and worldwide increases in freight.
'Based on the most recent data up to April 2021 there was a general downward trend during October 2020 to December 2020. In January 2021 there was a spike in food inflation followed by a decline in February. However, in March 2021 there was a small uptake in food inflation but this was again subdued in April 2021,' the release said.
While there have been increases in some items, products like toilet soap, powdered milk, infant cereal, frosted flakes, sugar, vinegar, tea bags, soap powder have remained stable, while others like brown sugar, toilet paper, grapefruit drink, mustard, dishwashing liquid, tomato ketchup, soya chunks, margarine smoked herring and chicken drumsticks have decreased.
'Government has been proactively monitoring and addressing rising food prices, as far as possible, through targeted interventions including addressing the supply-side constraints of manufacturers and importers and effective price monitoring mechanisms for selected goods and services,' the ministry said in the release.
The ministry said it is providing financing support to businesses to ease food inflation through providing an increased supply of foreign exchange to the tune of US$400 million through Eximbank along with supplying forex through Central Bank. Government has also suspended the common external tariff on salted fished and canned fish, cheddar cheese, canned corned beef, frozen french fries, milk and cream, refined sugar, preparations for infant use, soy bean and other types of oil for cooking.
The ministry is also monitoring the prices of food items through the Consumer Affairs Division (CAD).
'A monthly retail price survey is conducted amongst supermarkets across the country. The main intention of this survey is to monitor the movement of prices of 128 basic food items consumed by households.
Prices of building materials, electrical and plumbing items are surveyed at hardware stores across the country on a quarterly basis. Live and processed poultry prices are updated every month.
'A monthly report is published by the CAD via https://tradeind.gov.tt/consumer-affairs-division/ and other social media platforms to inform consumers of price trends across supermarkets, which allows consumers to deduce on
