Govt working to find solution to rising chicken price

KULAI: The Finance Ministry is working together with other ministries in finding solutions to the rising cost of chicken feed including the possibility of providing subsidies to the chicken breeders.

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz stated that the government was aware of the resulting price increase in chicken meat and would seek a fair way to stabilise its pricing.

"The government is aware of these issues and the Finance Ministry together with the Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry and the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry will go through all solutions to stabilise the chicken price for the food industry.

"Any decision would need to be looked into first in terms of the impact to the breeders and all industries involved in the food industry chain and most importantly the effect to the consumers, which is our main concern," he said.

He said this when met by reporters after visiting the freshwater fish breeding centre in Bukit Batu, here on Saturday (Sept 18).

The visit was part of his two-day working visit programme to Johor on Sept 18 and Sept 19.

Tengku Zafrul said that the Agriculture and Food Ministry was expecting a temporary price hike of poultry meat due to the unstable demand caused by the reopening of the economic sector.

"Whatever the suggestion is, we will take it through with the ministries involved before coming out with any solution," he explained.

Earlier, it was reported that a discussion will be carried out with the Finance Ministry as well as the Agriculture and Food Industry Ministry to search for a long-term solution to stabilise chicken prices.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi said while there were no plans to implement price control on the produce, for now, the ministry might enforce this if prices at every level of the distribution chain continued to go up unreasonably.

Currently, the price of poultry meat was capped along with a list of other essential food items during festive seasons.