The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced the expansion of the list of products and brands covered by the suggested retail prices (SRP) to address and ease the impact of the skyrocketing prices of basic goods.

In a radio interview, Trade secretary Ramon Lopez said the agency expanded the SRP list so the DTI could monitor more prices of basic necessities and prime commodities to ensure that there is no profiteering.

“We have expanded what the SRP can cover, we have added more brands and products,” he said. “Previously, there were at least 145 items covered by the SRP, but now, we have 209 items.”

Lopez enumerated that the products covered by SRP include canned goods like luncheon meat, meat loaf, corned beef, condiments like vinegar, soy sauce and fish sauce (patis), soap, candles, batteries, bottled water, sardines, powdered milk and coffee.

Apart from expanding the list of products and brands covered by SRP, the DTI also intensified its price monitoring activities by adding more stores checked every week.

“We also added more stores that we monitor. From 400, it was raised to 600 every week,” said Lopez.

The government earlier partly blamed profiteers for the steady increase in commodity prices as they may have taken advantage of the tax reform law.

Citing DTI’s monitoring, the Trade chief said that only 20 percent of manufactured products have registered price increases while the remaining 80 percent remained steady.

“In our weekly surveys, the manufacturing sector is the only one that does not move much because there are a lot of choices,” said Lopez.

He also noted that competition among different brands helped control price movements.

“Besides, the movement in prices was minimal at between two and 10 percent,” he added. LMR

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