Wed, Jun 14, 2006 page12

• Consumers group wants price stability

  • By Jackie Lin / STAFF REPORTER
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  The Consumers' Foundation wants the government to establish a mechanism to stabilize produce prices during typhoon season or heavy rains to eliminate profiteering by middlemen.

  As of 4pm yesterday, agricultural losses nationwide were estimated to have reached NT$975.96 million (US$30 million), with damages to produce accounting for 90 percent, or NT$885.93 million, according to statistics posted on the Council of Agriculture's Web site.

  Retail prices of vegetables have soared dramatically as supplies have dropped.

  Prices of leafy vegetables on Sunday rose 150.14 percent from May 26 with those for Chinese cabbage soaring a whopping 429.2 percent, the statistics showed.

  Although rootstocks prices only rose 51.39 percent during the same period, the price of green onions skyrocketed 374.29 percent.

  While some price hikes are reasonable given that 24,840 hectares of farmland have been flooded, the foundation said others are the result of profiteering.

  "The government has pledged to hunt down greedy middlemen for more than two decades, to no avail. Every year when the rainy and typhoon seasons come, exploitation of vegetable prices occurs again and again," Consumers' Foundation (消基會) chairman Jason Lee (李鳳翱) said yesterday.

  The foundation suggested that the government help establish a nationwide network of distribution centers, refrigeration facilities and transportation fleet so that farmers are able to ship their farm produce directly to retailers, reducing their dependence on middlemen.

  But this does not mean that the role of middlemen should be eliminated, said Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群), an associate professor of agricultural economics at National Taiwan University.

  "The existence of middlemen is a result of the market economy and most of them are good businesspeople making reasonable profits," said Sun, who is also the Consumers' Foundation's director and controller.

  The government's major task, however, is to crack down on the handful of black sheep who drive up prices to cause market instability, he said.

  Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) said on Sunday that consumer prices were likely to increase more than 2 percent this year if bad weather continues to push up fruit and vegetable prices.

  The government should map out measures to prevent massive price fluctuations, rather than scrambling to resolve the problem afterwards, the foundation said.

  Sun suggested consumers can make purchases at supermarkets run by farmers' associations, the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co (台北農產運銷公司), or major hypermarkets.
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