The inflation rate in the country remained low at 1.4 percent in August 2012, but needed to be controlled as prices of food commodities had shown an upward trend due to various global

factors.

According to the Economic Report 2012/2013 issued by the Finance Ministry, the increase in the price of food commodities was triggered by the rising prices of agricultural inputs, drought, floods, limited resources, competing uses of commodities for biofuel and the  demand arising from the population growth.

Thus, the government had been providing a lot of facilities and allocation in its efforts to mitigate the impact of inflation on the rakyat, especially the bottom 40 percent of households.

azlan To check the cost of living, a total of RM2.2 billion was distributed to 4.3 million families with a monthly income of RM3,000 and below, under the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) initiative.

A schooling assistance of RM100 was distributed to all primary and secondary school students, while a further assistance of book vouchers worth RM200 was provided to students in public and private higer learning institutions as well as those in matriculation and Form Six. These two assistance amounted to RM545 million and RM244 million respectively.

In the effort to ensure sufficient food supply and boost the added value of the agro-food sector, the National Agro food Policy 2011-2020 was launched in January this year with RM1.1 billion allocated to various projects including to improve padi yield and the construction of a barrage in the Northern Terengganu Integrated Agroculture Development (Ketara), and some irrigation projects in Sabah and Sarawak.

The report stated that the scope under the Commercial Agricultural Fund was extended to include innovative agriculture projects to further modernise the sector, whereby Agrobank had disbursed RM418.2 million to finance 42 agricultural projects.

Another RM14 million was allocated to extend the contract farming programme and at the same time, the Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (Fama) had expended RM6.1 million in marketing more than 191,000 tonnes of agriculture produce.

For basic needs, among the assistance given were rebates on electricity bills for household monthly consumption of RM20 and less, the introduction of 1Malaysia Rakyat’s Welfare (Karisma) programme which provides welfare assistance to the poor, elderly and the disabled; increasing the number of Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M), opening more Agro Bazaar Kedai Rakyat and expanding the number of 1Malaysia products.

Affordable homes

According to the report, continuous efforts have been initiated to provide affordable and quality houses to the rakyat through the My First Home Scheme and the allocation of funds for several projects under the 1Malaysia Perople Housing (PR1MA) programme, Program Perumahan Rakyat (PPR), Rumah Mesra Rakyat 1Malaysia (RMR1M) as well as the Abandoned Housing Rahabilitation Programme and Special Housing Fund for Fisherman.

To further provide quality services in the healthcare sector, the construction of  several new hospitals were ongoing in Sri Aman, Rembau and Kuala Krai as well as the upgrading works of hospitals in Ipoh, Mersing and Putrajaya and is expected to be completed by 2015.

- Bernama

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