Enhancing Consumer Protection

FY2024 MTI COS — “ENHANCING CONSUMER PROTECTION” BY MELVIN YONG (RADIN MAS SMC) ON 1 MAR 2024

1. Mr Chairman, price transparency is a core principle that safeguards our consumers and ensures that we make well-informed purchase decisions.

2. To address the issue of shrinkflation, where retailers seemingly maintain the price of a product but secretly reduces the portion size, can MTI work with the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), to examine the prevalence of this practice in Singapore, and encourage local retailers to deploy unit pricing in-store? Since 1 January 2023, CASE has rolled out unit pricing on more than 6000 items listed on the Price Kaki app. With MTI’s support, CASE is prepared to assist retailers to implement unit pricing.

3. According to CASE’s annual complaint statistics, the number of consumers relating to e-commerce transactions surged by 47% in 2023. The most frequent issues pertain to failure to receive orders within delivery timelines and the failure to receive refunds. This is deeply concerning. We must take urgent actions to better protect consumers, particularly as purchasing behaviour has shifted and many consumers now rely on e-commerce.

4. The Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act was last reviewed in 2016, a time when e-commerce had yet to boom. I urge MTI to review the Act to account for the evolution in consumers’ purchase habits. CASE stands ready to partner with MTI on this, so that we can better protect consumers.