absolutelyBangkok archive · Business & Economics
Originally published Sept. 1, 2010
Thailand’s rising prices of sugar and egg — a political issue? Simple inflation? Dark market mechanisms or even speculators at work? Food giant CP must love it.
You may not have noticed because for you the price increase is minimal or you don’t do your own shopping, but the issue has become so political that some of the good old socialist price controls are back.
Starting this September even the price of drinking water is controlled at retail shops and food courts that are considered necessary for low-income people.
The price of staple foods such as onion and garlic have determined the future of other governments in the past. The higher price of sugar and egg is not yet critical, but Abhisit may face a crisis at least as serious as the mob if people can’t have a sweet tooth anymore.
This year Thailand, the world’s second largest producer of sugar, had to import the stuff. Imagine, because of greedy traders and exporters Bangkok has to buy sugar for the first time in thirty years.
Wonder when we gonna import rice… Meanwhile, we’re told, civil unrest continues in Thailand…
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