NONTHABURI, Jan 21 (TNA) – The owners of cold storage warehouses must declare their stocks if they keep more than 5,000 kilograms of pork each. Otherwise, they will face legal action, according to the Commerce Ministry.
Boonyarit Kalayanamit, permanent secretary for commerce, announced the requirement and said that about 400 warehouse operators who made such declarations had altogether over 8.3 million kilograms of pork as of Jan 17. The operators registered their pork storage with the Department of Livestock Development and the department is verifying their data together with the Department of Internal Trade.
The owners of such huge stocks of pork must declare their stocks and pork prices weekly. The same rule that the Central Committee on the Prices of Goods and Services imposed on Jan 10 also applied to the raisers, each of whom had 500 pigs or more, he said.
Any operator who failed to report the data would be liable to a jail term of up to one year, a fine of up to 20,000 baht and an additional daily fine of 2,000 baht during the wrongdoing. Those who illegally hoarded pork would face a jail term of seven years and/or a fine of 140,000 baht under the Prices of Goods and Services Act, Mr Boonyarit said. (TNA)
