The government will step up its surveillance of rising food and public service prices in a bid to prevent inflation from hurting the livelihoods of low and mid-income people, the country's top economic policymaker said Friday.
The remarks by Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan come amid concerns that local food makers and public service providers are seeking to raise their product prices by taking advantage of potentially lax market monitoring during the power transition period following the Dec. 19 presidential election.
"There are moves underway to raise prices for processed food products and public services, which raises worries that they could hamper the overall economic recovery based on price stability," Bahk told an anti-inflation meeting held in central Seoul.
"Unless we keep tabs on price-destabilizing factors during this transition period, it could lead to a disruption of the price stability trend ... We will work together not just with government agencies but also with consumer groups to systematically maintain prices," he added.
In a related move, the government plans to toughen its stance on "unjustified and "bandwagon" price hikes among providers of processed foods and public services and if price hikes are inevitable, it will push to spread out their implementation periods.
Korea's prices have remained relatively stable in recent months. The country's consumer prices index rose 1.6 percent in November from a year earlier, compared with a 2.1 percent on-year gain the previous month. This marked the slowest growth in three months. (Yonhap)