With the move, officials hope to bring the sky-rocketing prices at the capital city's airport down to a reasonable level.

Li Peiying, president of the airport, was quoted by local media as saying that an airport food supplement company would take over all the food outlets at the airport beginning October 1, when the leases with the current vendors expire.

"The commodity prices at the Singapore Airport are even cheaper than in its urban areas, and I promise the capital airport will follow in the Singapore airports' footsteps with the new operations," Li said.

As it stands, the capital airport rents shops to individuals, and is only responsible for security management.

Without price regulations, airport shops have been selling their products at prices five to 10 times higher than in urban areas, and have come under severe criticism from travelers.

Liu Jianfeng, the former minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, sarcastically described the hot milk on sale at the airport as "super milk," because it costs 50 yuan (US$6) a cup. In urban areas, a cup of hot milk costs less than 10 yuan (US$1.2).

Under pressure from both passengers and senior regulators, the capital airport renovated the price structure in late 2001 and in the first half of this year. But Li admitted that standing leases to some extent fettered their efforts to rein in irrationally high prices.

The new airport food supplement company took over the underground food outlets this July, and the prices of most food have dropped to a lower level, Li said.

But some problems have come along with the successes. Former leaseholders have sued the airport in a local court, accusing it of violating contracts.

"We have the option of extending our leasing agreement when the old one expires, but the airport authority has arbitrarily terminated our contracts," a former leaseholder, who gave only his surname Chen, told local media.

He said the former high prices had various causes and it's unfair to blame shop owners alone.

"With one company holding a monopoly on the whole airport market, consumers have no way to benefit," Chen said.

Chen and some former shop owners visited the new underground food markets in late July, after the airport food supplement company had taken over their operations, and found that many products were still on sale at their former prices.

(China Daily September 5, 2002)