Gao Feng: Friends from the press,

good afternoon. Welcome to the regular press conference of MOFCOM. I have no announcements to make today. I’d like to take your questions now.

China News Service: With the New Year’s Day and the Spring Festival around the corner, what measures will MOFCOM take to ensure the market supply this year, given the sporadic outbreaks of covid-19 cases in many places?

In order to do a good job ensuring the market supply and epidemic prevention and control in the field of commerce during the holidays, MOFCOM has been working with local commerce authorities to carry out related work to increase market supply, strengthen market monitoring, and ensure that people can enjoy their holiday.

First, we will take science-based and accurate measures to prevent and control the pandemics in the field of commerce. Commerce departments at all levels will fully implement measures to prevent and control the epidemic in the field of commerce, strengthen the management of crowded places, urge enterprises engaging in trade and distribution to develop a prevention and control management system and emergency response plans, help them to raise the awareness of prevention and control, guide employees and customers to strictly comply with the provisions of prevention and control, and call for effective personal protection.

Second, we will increase market supply. We will guide businesses to ramp up stocks and enrich the variety of goods according to the needs of different consumer groups. In particular, we will ensure sufficient supply of daily necessities such as grains, edible oil, meat, eggs, vegetables and milk so that there will be no shortage of these goods. Since December, MOFCOM, in collaboration with the relevant departments, has put the central reserve of frozen pork on the market, and will continue to do so to further increase the supply according to the market conditions. In the meantime, we will provide guidance for localities in putting reserved goods on the market. The relevant areas in the northern China will continue to stock vegetable reserves to ensure the supply of vegetables this winter and spring. Areas dominated by ethnic minorities will actively provide halal food, tea and other necessities suited to local residents.

Third, we will strengthen market monitoring. During the Spring Festival, we will ask 36 large and medium-sized cities to monitor the daily market system of daily necessities in a bid to follow the situation of supply and demand of necessities and price changes in the market. We will timely release information on the supply and demand of various goods, guide market expectations, keep a close watch on the market, and properly deal with unexpected problems. Thank you!

Gao Feng: If there are no more questions, this is the end of today's regular press conference. Today is the last day of 2020, which has been a very extraordinary year. Here, on behalf of MOFCOM information office, I’d like to thank all journalists and friends who care about commerce work, for your constant care, support, understanding, and help. Thank you for always being there with us both online and offline. As we ring in the New Year, I wish you and your family a happy New Year and good health. Let’s continue to work together towards a better future.

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)