Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Saturday ordered concerned authorities to speed up measures to contain high consumer product prices caused by the massive flood last year, Thai News Agency reported.

The premier, on her weekly programme "Yingluck Government Meets the People," said that last year's flood crisis was the major factor that caused high prices of consumer products.

She said that consumer goods prices were lower when compared with the same month last year but the flood had forced many factories to halt their operations, while many distribution centres could not deliver the products, eventually causing prices to increase as demand was much higher than the supply.

However, she expressed confidence that the high prices of food and consumer products would return to normal by June this year.

Yingluck said she has ordered the Commerce Ministry to speed up the expansion of the "Blue Flag" programme to sell consumer goods at low prices assisting low-income earners, and expected every community to have one Blue Flag shop or stall starting this month.

The ministry of commerce and relevant offices would implement measures to ensure that prices of consumer goods were reasonable, particularly those of eggs and palm cooking oil, said the premier.

The prime minister said the government believed the rise of world oil prices would be only short term and would not intervene in domestic oil prices, but measures would be taken to ease the impact on the public.