PUTRAJAYA, June 28 — Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli today announced that as part of government efforts to combat inflation, his ministry is in the process of implementing a farming programme.

Rafizi said that the Farming Entrepreneur Initiative, which will be known by its Malay abbreviation "Intan”, will involve a first phase using 1,000 acres of land and was meant to combat food price inflation in the country by increasing food supply.

"Our efforts are not like before, where we asked the public to plant crops and only provided initial assistance, but instead involves the construction of an overall agricultural infrastructure, the provision of funds, land clearing, and infrastructure development,” he said during a press conference at Menara Prisma here.

Rafizi said that his ministry is looking to identify and select the first 1,000 acres of land to be used from federal government-owned land, and that further details will be announced next month.

He added that the project will be implemented by "strategic partners” from both federal and state-level government agricultural industries.

"The implementing agencies will train and manage people from the B40 and hardcore poor groups who participate in this programme,” he said, referring to the bottom 40 per cent of wage earners.

Rafizi said that while the first phase of the project would focus on public agencies, subsequent phases would provide opportunities for private companies to become strategic partners.

He added that participants in the initiative will cultivate cash crops with high demand, such as chillies.

Rafizi also announced that his ministry, along with the Human Resources Ministry, is formulating a salary growth framework to make sure that Malaysians’ salaries keep up with the rising cost of living.

"This is the first time in the history of the country that an administration has made the effort to build a specific framework on salary growth that is inclusive of all workers.

"A paper on the progressive salary policy will be presented to the National Economic Action Council in August for us to get direction from the country’s leadership,” he said.

Rafizi announced earlier today that the inflation rate for May had dropped to 2.8 per cent, marking a nine-month continuous decline in the inflation rate since September last year.