China's Ministry of Commerce Sunday urged its national commerce branches to ensure abundant commodities and medical supplies on the market and set up a daily monitoring and reporting system.
The ministry made the remarks in notices issued Sunday to stop panic buying in some places of the country.
The ministry also required the national commerce sectors to be well prepared to distribute commodities and medical supplies such as masks and disinfectants.
Seven staple commodities listed by the ministry as the targets of daily supervision are grains, oil, vegetables, meet, egg, salt, and sugar.
Each city should select at least 10 major markets or supermarkets for monitoring and report the sales and prices of the selected goods to local authorities every day, said the ministry. A 24-hour hotline has been set up within the ministry to deal with the timely distribution of supplies.
The ministry has also strengthened the national market regulation and any illegalities, like fake or low quality commodities and cases of improper price rises, will be exposed and punished.
(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2003)
