The governed will take concrete measures to ensure adequate
supplies of pork and cooking oil ahead of the Spring Festival
shopping spree, a senior official said Sunday.
Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said, "Commerce departments
will maintain market stability and ensure that commodities
necessary to the lives of the public are not out of stock before
and during the traditional holiday."
"The ministry will strengthen daily monitoring of the market and
keep a close watch on changes in supply and demand and prices, " he
said.
Rising food prices, especially pork, the country's staple meat,
had pushed the consumer price index to an 11-year high of 6.9
percent in November last year.
China's pork production fell dramatically last summer on
breeders' dampened enthusiasm due to rising feed costs in addition
to a massive pig cull after the outbreak of blue-ear disease in
some regions.
The nationwide supply of pork, however, had recovered to the
level of the same period of last year, according to the
ministry.
Chen said the ministry would encourage companies to increase
supplies of grain, cooking oil and meat and to redistribute these
key commodities between different regions.
The government would release part of its reserves of meat
products to the market in an effort to satisfy the demand from
low-income families, college students, migrant workers and people
of minority nationalities.
To increase supply, the ministry would also adjust its trade
policy and crack down on profiteering, hoarding and other
activities that disrupted the market order, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 21, 2008)