The maximum price for 5 kg of cooking oil in bottles has been set at RM34.70

Starting on August 8, Sabah, Sarawak, and Labuan have a ceiling price for 5kg bottles of cooking oil that is the same as Peninsular Malaysia: RM34.70.

Minister for domestic trade and consumer affairs Alexander Nanta Linggi added that the maximum price for 1 kilogram of bottled cooking oil, 2 kg of bottled cooking oil, and 3 kg of bottled cooking oil had been established at RM7.70, RM14.70, and RM21.70, respectively.

The methodology used to establish the ceiling price is based on the simulated retail sales price of pure cooking oil, taking into account recent changes in the price of crude palm oil on the world market.

Nevertheless, he said in a statement, "The determination of the ceiling price also took into consideration many contingency costs, including logistics, as well as conditions faced by some shops to exhaust their supply of pure cooking oil purchased at old pricing.

Nanta stated that the Special Task Force on Jihad Against Inflation meeting yesterday resolved to base the monthly ceiling price for unsubsidized cooking oil on the preceding month's average global price of a metric ton of crude palm oil (CPO).

"The plantation industries and commodities ministry on the first of every month decided the average monthly CPO price followed by the release of the ceiling price of bottled cooking oil for the month, effective from the eighth to the seventh of the following month," he said.

The bottled cooking oil would only be sold at this month's price of RM34.70 for Peninsular Malaysia, as revealed yesterday by task force chairman Annuar Musa.

Nanta, meantime, stated that the prohibition on unsubsidized pure cooking oil in polybags was gazetted yesterday in order to decrease leakages, prevent consumer and exporter confusion, and increase the efficacy of monitoring.