China to release agricultural reserves to meet market demand

China will gather goods, release more reserve of agricultural products and encourage innovation of commercial enterprises' operational models to meet market demand and stabilize prices for goods, the Ministry of Commerce said on Monday.

To minimize the impact caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic, the ministry already began to support commercial enterprises — in particular, supermarkets, convenience stores, wholesale and community grocery markets — important to epidemic prevention and control in resuming business as soon as possible, said Zhu Xiaoliang, director-general at the ministry's department of market system development.

About 92 percent of 7,000 supermarkets in 34 large and medium-sized cities are being operated, data from the ministry show.

China recently released over 100,000 metric tons of frozen pork from the national reserve into the market and allotted 47,000 tons of vegetable to places such as Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Shaanxi province.

Zhu said the ministry and related government branches will count epidemic prevention materials, personnel numbers and commodity reserves for commercial businesses, as well as crack down on speculation and hoarding of goods.