A main rice distributor in Papua New Guinea has increased the price of its product by up to eight percent.
Trukai Industries says its Roots rice brand now retails at about 4 kina 50 or 1 dollar 80 US a kilogram.
It says a kilogram of Trukai rice will now cost people about 5 kina which is around 2 US dollars.
Trukai Industries general manager for corporate affairs, Geoff Fahey, says a number of factors contributed to its price increase.
"It's more about global economic factors in terms of commodity prices, the price of oil as you know as you'd be aware was very very high some months ago. The cost of shipping because of that was very very high as was the cost of trucking rice and rice products around Papua New Guinea. So there's a lot of factors that come into play in determining the price of a product."
Geoff Fahey says a global shortage of rice also added to its product price-up.
