DTI assures  steady market price of school supplies

The Department of Trade and Industry maintains that prices of school materials, especially pad papers, notebooks and pencils in the market will remain stable.

In an interview yesterday with The Freeman, DTI provincial representative Zaide Bation said that the public, most especially parents, should not be wary of the prices of school supplies because the agency is on the lookout for “maintaining the steady market price of the said goods.”

“We are expecting prices of school supplies to maintain, nationwide, with the start of classes,” Bation said.

As related businesses prepare for the high demands of the market for school supplies, DTI has already conducted weekly monitoring of the prices and quality of school supplies starting last April until next month.

DTI inspectors have recorded the current prices in school supply businesses. Supervision of prices applies only to affordable products, or excluding the premium brands.

According to Bation, the prices of pencils this week remain at P3.50 to P5.50 while some brands of pad papers and intermediate pads like Advance and Easy Writing have decreased by P2. Selling prices for Merit brand have dropped by 75 centavos. — Annie Hazel Basada and Rizzi Ann Cerera, UP Tacloban CommArts interns/MEEV