The Trade Department on Thursday threatened to shut down stores and stalls in public wet markets once they are found preying on consumers with excessive prices.
The agency said starting Friday, it would have the authority to padlock stalls selling products at prohibitive prices, based on an agreement with the Agriculture Department.
It said a team would visit the markets today to inspect how sellers priced their goods and monitor the prices of different agricultural produce including fish and meat products.
“It’s automatic that we can close stalls that are selling at very high price. Personally, I don’t want to do this, but something must be done to correct this practice,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said.
A meeting with the Agriculture Department and wet market stakeholders gave the Trade Department the green light to monitor and close stalls of erring vendors.
The DTI said it would closely work with the Local Price Coordinating Council for the monitoring of public wet markets at the municipal level.
“If this effort will not be enough to pressure wet market vendors to lower their prices, we might impose a price ceiling for certain wet market produce,” Lopez said.