China will tighten prices of certain goods including medicine
and property as part of measures to stabilize a market which has
been rocked by surging price rises, said the National Development
and Reform Commission.
"China will face a rather arduous task to cope with inflation
pressure next year, driven by rising global prices, robust domestic
demand, higher costs for using environmentally friendly resources,"
said Bi Jingquan, vice director of the nation's top planning body,
according to a statement on its website.
But the country's good harvests in recent years and the
substantial increase of fiscal revenue will help ease the pressure,
said Bi.
According to the statement, China will ensure that overall
prices do not rise too fast. It will improve supervision, guiding
production, supplies and market distribution of basic
necessities.
The country will offer a preferential price for purchases of
wheat and rice from farmers to guarantee market supply and provide
subsidies for sectors badly hurt by price increases of power, crude
oil and natural gas.
China's consumer prices in October climbed 6.5 percent, the
highest pace in more than a decade while they widened to more than
six percent in August and September.
The producer prices, a gauge of factory-gate inflation, rose 4.6
percent last month from a year earlier, the highest in more than
two years. The previous record was 5.9 percent in May 2005.
China's fiscal revenue may expand by 27.23 percent to more than
five trillion yuan (US$675.7 billion) this year, estimated Yao
Jingyuan, chief economist with the National Bureau of
Statistics.
(Shanghai Daily December 11, 2007)
