The Independent Consumer and Competitions Commission (ICCC) has revealed a number of factors that are behind the increases in the domestic price of rice products, which it has been monitoring for some time. The ICCC Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Paulus Ain, said the domestic price for rice products have remained high for some time and further increased in early 2023 to the beginning of 2024 as a result of a number of global and domestic factors. Rice, being one of the declared goods directly under the ICCC price monitoring oversight, and as part of ICCC’s price monitoring role, the Commission noted an increase of about 12.88% for the 1kg medium grain (blended) since March 2023, and an increase of 12.96% for international prices of rice since January 2023. These are increases at the factory level (factory- gate- price) and the international prices since 2023. “The ICCC has been closely monitoring the trend in domestic prices of rice at the factory- gate level as well as at the wholesale and retail levels, to identify and address any inefficiencies that may add to increased prices of rice domestically,” said Mr. Ain. “Whilst a few of the retail shops may decide to increase their prices for genuine and valid reasons, some retailers may use such opportunities to increase their prices at unreasonably higher levels than what they should be charging." Mr. Ain said with the government’s initiatives to help the consumers during these unprecedented times, the ICCC is keeping a close watch on businesses to ensure they don’t increase their prices unnecessarily to the disadvantage of the consumers. However, the ICCC can only observe the domestic prices and do less on price controlling because since the ICCC’s mandate on rice as a declared good is more light- handed, the Commission is limited only to price monitoring as opposed to controlling the domestic price of rice. Therefore, Mr. Ain explained that the government will have to seek exceptional powers outside of its legislative limitations to impose stringent controls (maybe price control) on the wholesale and retail prices for some food items, including rice. Meanwhile, the other factors behind the increase in the domestic price of rice products are; · General increases in the international prices for rice, especially long grain Indica variety and the Glutinous variety. The reduction in international supply of rice due to reduced harvest, has forced world market prices for rice to soar higher, affecting domestic prices in PNG, since the country imports most of its rice from overseas markets. · Shipping delays and disruptions due to re- routing of ships also affect international export prices for rice products, such as India. This has affected domestic prices. · Fixed (contract) international prices. The domestic importers of rice enter into purchase agreements with their international suppliers by locking a certain price. The agreed price will not be adjusted regardless of the price increases or decreases in the future. · The current weak performance of the PNG Kina against major trading currencies has also impacted the domestic prices of rice, despite reductions in the international prices for certain rice varieties, including all other imported food and non- food items.