Enterprises guarantee supply of key items

In the battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government will spare no effort to ensure supplies of commodities and stabilize prices to meet public expectations and enhance confidence, a government official told a news conference on Wednesday.

Xiao Yaqing, head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said the government has established an online platform to make sure enterprises guarantee commodity prices and quality during the epidemic prevention and control period.

Through the platform, enterprises promise consumers they will ensure the prices of epidemic prevention supplies and key daily necessities will not rise during the period, quality will not drop, and supply will be continuous.

During the video news conference, the promise was made by Chinese enterprises including Wumart, Alibaba, COFCO, Beijing Capital Agribusiness Group and Yili.

Xiao said enterprises must honor their solemn promises to society through practical actions, and always put responsibility first.

"According to actual market demand, enterprises should speed up the restoration of production capacity, increase order replenishment and integrate online and offline advantages," Xiao said.

"In addition, they should keep logistics and transportation unimpeded, strengthen disinfection of production and business sites and ensure employees' safety is protected in order to guarantee price stability, quality, safety and market supply of daily necessities that are closely related to the public, so that the people are satisfied."

He said public demand for important daily commodities such as epidemic prevention supplies, food and drugs had surged.

China's top economic regulator has taken a series of measures to increase the market supply of vegetables and stabilize prices.

The National Development and Reform Commission has worked with other departments to set up channels for fresh vegetable shipments to Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

Shouguang, in eastern China's Shandong province, donated 350 metric tons of high-quality vegetables to Wuhan on Tuesday and will continue to support Wuhan with a daily supply of 600 tons of vegetables as needed.

As demand for face masks surges in China amid the outbreak, the nation is also ramping up efforts to increase production.

Zhongsen, a company in Wuhan, has restarted the production of masks and hazardous materials suits, with a lot of workers doing overtime to ensure supply.

"With the government's strong support, we will strive to achieve the goal of producing 200,000 masks a day," said Dong Yan, special assistant to Zhongsen's chairman.

Xiao said market supervision departments at all levels should put the people first, focus on price and quality supervision, close wildlife markets and solidly implement measures to prevent and control the epidemic and maintain social stability.