Authority:There will be no immediate price hikes after wage rise

BANGKOK, April 7 (TNA) - Thai Permanent Secretary for Commerce Yanyong Puangraj insisted Saturday that no immediate goods price hikes by local manufacturers will be allowed after a new daily minimum wage rise to 300 baht in first seven provinces, including Bangkok, from April 1. Yanyong told journalists that goods prices will remain unchanged for a certain period of time, as his Commerce Ministry has found that local production costs have slightly increased after the daily minimum wage rise, and that goods prices on average so far this year have, in fact, dropped from the same period of last year. Yanyong assessed that Thailand's average inflation this year should stay at 3.8 per cent, probably the lowest among member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but if global oil prices rose to 140 U.S. dollars per barrel, the country's inflation would increase by only 0.1 per cent. Meanwhile, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, accompanied by senior officials, visited the Nang Leong Market, one of the oldest markets in Bangkok located near the Government House, Saturday afternoon, saying that she plans to visit people and check goods prices at the market at least once a week. Earlier in the day, the prime minister ordered provincial governors to carefully study what main cash crops are grown and should be promoted as national exports in the long run, after the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is formed by 2015. (TNA)