South Korea's anti-trust watchdog has launched a large-scale investigation into price rigging and inflation-causing activities, joining a pan-governmental drive to stabilize prices ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, government sources said Tuesday.
The move by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) comes on the heels of its recent reorganization aimed mostly at creating a comprehensive price monitoring task force by combining its market monitoring, cartel investigation and consumer policy divisions.
The newly-created team will carry out the investigation, and its preliminary probe will be completed before the holiday that falls on Feb. 2-4, the sources said.
"As price stability has emerged as a national issue, the FTC launched a large-scale investigation yesterday in order to actively cope with inappropriate price hikes and other price-rigging activities ahead of the holiday," a source close to the matter told Yonhap.
"This probe will be the largest ever since the FTC was established. The number of items and companies subject to the investigation will also be the largest ever," he added.
The probe is in line with the government's ongoing efforts to tame inflation. Earlier, the finance ministry said it will step up price monitoring of 22 items, including agriculture, fishery and livestock products, as part of anti-inflation measures. It will also unveil more sweeping price stabilization measures on Thursday.
The FTC did not specify which items and companies will be investigated, but an FTC official said the 22 items announced by the government will also be under its scrutiny.
The watchdog said its probe will focus mostly on such items for the time being as their demand will likely spike ahead of the holiday, but it will maintain its stepped-up monitoring on other products to crack down on irregular price increases and price collusion activities.