The Internal Trade Department warns

The Internal Trade Department warns operators of cold storages not to hoard seafood otherwise they could face up to seven years in prison and a fine of 40,000 baht.
The warning came as the ITD director-general Boonyarit Kalayanamitr led a team of officials to inspect Talay Thai market, the country’s largest seafood market in Samut Sakhon province today..

The team inspected the seafood market and surveyed the prices of fresh and processed seafood there.

The inspection revealed that the majority of the seafood sellers at the market have continued to sell their goods at the same prices as before, except for the prices of squids and deep sea fishes, which have seen a rise in their prices by about 20-50 baht, as the fishmongers are charging higher prices for them.

The team also inspected several cold storages in the province and operators assured they would not hoard the seafood even though fishing trawlers have stopped fishing.

The business sector further assured that this situation would not cause a shortage in seafood among consumers for the next 1-2 months.

As for the price control of the seafood, the director-general confirmed that the department would let market mechanism to decide the prices and would not impose any price control on the seafood as their prices depend on the daily prices the sellers were able to purchase from the fishmongers. However, the department has asked seafood traders to sell their goods at reasonable prices.