China said on Monday it will scrap export rebates for 84 agricultural products as of Thursday in effort to discourage exports of farm produce in a nation where food prices drove inflation to an 11-year high in November.

 

The products include wheat, oat, maize, paddy, rice, broomcorn, soybean, and their powder bi-products, according to a circular posted on the Ministry of Finance (MOF) website on Monday.

 

Exporters would be given a cushion period through Feb. 29 if they can not negotiate a change in the export prices on the contracts signed before Thursday, the circular released by the MOF and the State Administration of Taxation said.

 

Exporters needed to report the contracts to the taxation authorities before Dec. 31 if they wanted to be entitled to the cushion period.

 

China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, jumped to an 11-year-high of 6.9 percent in November mainly on food price increases. Prices of food, which has a 33 percent weighting on CPI, soared 18.2 percent last month.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2007)