China's government is shipping more rice, corn and other staple grains to eastern cities such as Shanghai, the nation's largest commercial city, to boost local stockpiles and help stem a rise in prices, the government said.
Rice prices have started to decline this week in Shanghai and other cities in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, after rising by as much as 40 percent in the past month, said Cao Zhi, a State Grain Administration analyst.
"The government has taken notice of the price rise," Cao said. "The railway ministry is giving precedence to grain shipments heading to where most of the grain is consumed."
Grain inventory shortages in China's wealthiest cities widened earlier this year following the country's fastest period of economic growth since 1997. The 9.1 percent growth rate last year led to shortages of everything from power, also felt most acutely along the east coast, to copper concentrates.
"The price spike is felt mostly in the cities, where there's no grain output but where the rise in consumption is most pronounced," said Yang Zhicheng, a trader with Zhejiang Yongan Futures Co. "The steepest part of the increase is probably over, but the trend is still intact."
Prices for medium-quality rice in eastern China have risen to about 3,400 yuan (US$411) a tonne, up from about 2,050 yuan a month ago. Soybean prices for the most active contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange rose 8.9 percent in the same period.
China's consumer prices increased 1.2 percent last year, with inflation accelerating to a 6 1/2-year high of 3.2 percent in December. Prices have been rising too fast and must be closely monitored, the People's Bank of China said in a review of last year posted on its Web site last month.
China's government has been reducing its grain purchases as part of efforts to bring output more in line with demand, lowering government stockpiles and thus its ability to react quickly to resolve shortages.
China's central government grain reserves had risen to a record 60 million tonnes, and should be cut by about half to reduce reliance among farmers on government buying, Han Jun, director of research at the State Council, China's highest governing body, said at a grain conference in August last year. The government cut its buying to about 60 percent of domestic grain output, down from 100 percent before 2000.
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