The Chinese Ministry of Commerce recently issued an Urgent Notice for Reinforcement of Market Monitoring on Daily Necessities. The ministry decided to establish a reporting mechanism for market watching on daily urban necessities in order to prevent and deal with abnormal market fluctuations. In the past few days, people in some Chinese cities rushed to stores to buy daily necessities in large quantities, causing some goods to be temporarily out of stock and making prices soar.
The monitoring range is set temporarily by urgent notices for seven major kinds of goods – staple foods, cooking oil, salt, vegetables, meat, sugar, and eggs. Detailed species include small packs of polished round-grained rice, small packs of wheat flour, bucket packs of cooking oil, Chinese cabbage, turnips, tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes, fresh pork, eggs, refined white sugar, and salt.
Municipalities, cities enjoying provincial-level status in the state economic plan, and provincial capitals are to designate 10 large-scale daily necessities stores in the cities for monitoring.
Monitoring index concerning the above commodities includes daily total sales, average price, comparison with the same date last month, and the city’s total demand and supply. Designated stores are required to submit monitoring reports to competent authorities at a higher level by noon each day. Relevant competent authorities are to make out analysis based on the submitted report by noon, collate the analyzed results and submit the final reports to the Office for Monitoring on Daily Necessities under the Ministry of Commerce. When such a big event occurs as SARS, such reports are required whenever necessary.
The Logistics Guarantee Group of The National Headquarters for SARS Prevention and Control has specially set up a Coordination Office for Daily Necessities with its working office being set in the Trading Market Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, May 2, 2003)
