Thai PM inspects goods prices

NAKHON PATHOM, THAILAND, May 19 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra inspected consumer products prices at a local market here Saturday morning, before proceeding to adjacent Kanchanaburi province for the next mobile Cabinet meeting Sunday. Yingluck received a warm welcome from vegetable and fruit vendors, as well as Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsab and Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul upon her arrival at the market in the central Thai province. Yingluck said she found that retail prices of farm products have dropped by some 20 per cent on average from her last week's inspections, promising that her administration will, however, quickly bring goods prices down on their normal tracks in line with the market mechanism so that they will be good for both farmers or producers and consumers. While touring the market, Yingluck also received a complaint lodged by some 200 pomelo growers from Nakhon Pathom's two districts, in which the local growers said that their orchards received a government compensation of only 5,000 baht per rai after their plantations were heavily flooded late last year and asked the government to, instead, pay 50,000 baht per rai for their damaged plantations, claiming that orchid growers in Nakhon Pathom have already received compensation of between 30,000-70,000 baht a rai. The prime minister later paid her worship to Phra Pathom Chedi, the biggest pagoda in Thailand, before continuing her journey to Kanchanaburi to meet leaders of the government-sponsored women’s development fund programme. The prime minister is scheduled to conduct an aerial inspection on the updated water situation at Sri Nagarindra Dam in Kanchanaburi this afternoon and hold a meeting of the Joint Public-Private Sector Consultative Committee this evening, before chairing the mobile Cabinet meeting at Rajabhat University Kanchanaburi tomorrow. (TNA)