CPL to keep current prices

 CITY Pharmacy Group will keep its current prices and absorb costs amid the weakening kina, chairman Mahesh Patel (pictured) said.

The group includes City Pharmacy, Stop N Shop, Hardware Haus, Boncafe, Homemaker and Paradise Cinema.

He said CPL was experiencing a slowdown in growth and an increase in import costs.

However, Patel said the group was trading better than it did in the last financial year.

He said: “With the depreciation of the kina, we are holding our prices and absorbing costs in the short term … we are not passing on the cost increases to our customers. 

“There seem to be a slowdown in the third quarter this year but we are seeing an improvement in the last quarter, hoping that this would flow through to the end of the year.

“With the depreciation of the currency, there is an increase in costs of imports. 

“We had some forward forex cover (foreign exchange market) but for the short term only.”

The foreign exchange market helped the international trade and investment through conversion.

Oil Search managing director Peter Botten said the company was not seeing any “massive impact” from the fall.

He said: “To Oil Search, there’s no massive impact … we trade in US dollars … our revenue is in US and costs in kina”.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Papua New Guinea has already taken steps to stabilise the weakening kina.