A special committee to stabilise prices of goods in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan will work with researchers from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) to find a comprehensive mechanism to address the issue.

Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali said the role of public university researchers is very important in outlining a strategy to address the issue.

"We are not only looking at the initiatives of the federal government and the state government, but we will also involve universities, especially UMS and Unimas.

"They have experts that we can discuss together to outline the strategy and mechanism of how we mobilise this committee to ease the burden of the people in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan," he told reporters when met at the Sabah Street Fashion Show 2023 programme here, today.

He said the ministry, as the secretariat of the special committee, is committed to ensuring that it can be mobilised next year.

Armizan said the ministry was preparing the terms of reference for the special committee to be implemented next year.

'I don't want to be too ambitious that we can solve all the issues immediately. We have to take a short-term, medium-term and long-term approach because it is not a new issue.

"Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan have been facing the issue of high prices of goods compared to the peninsula for a long time, even if we cannot completely standardise (prices of goods), we hope to stabilise the price,' he said.

Regarding the Sabah Street Fashion Show 2023 programme, Armizan said it is the best platform to allow local fashion designers to highlight their creativity, especially modern batik clothing with Sabah's ethnic and cultural motifs.

He also called on local fashion designers, especially in Sabah, to take full advantage of the government's policies related to the use of batik by producing more batik clothing products, thus empowering the campaign to buy locally made goods.

Source: BERNAMA News Agency