A scene of the vegetable section at the agricultural produce wholesale market in Meilin, Futian District, yesterday. The city government has assured residents that market supplies of daily essentials are sufficient. Sun Yuchen
Shenzhen's market supplies of daily essentials, such as vegetables, eggs, rice, edible oil, wheat flour and poultry, are ample and prices are stable, Mo Xiling, deputy head of the city’s market supervision bureau, said at a press conference yesterday.
According to her, agricultural enterprises, wet markets, supermarkets and online retailers have prepared sufficient supplies. Specifically, Shenzhen Agricultural Produce Group has signed transportation cooperation agreements with logistics companies and production bases in Guangdong and other provinces to ensure supplies in case of emergency. The bureau will also tighten food safety inspections, she said.
Jian Zheng, deputy head of the city’s commerce bureau, said at the conference that over 20 supermarkets and online fresh food retailers accredited by the bureau, which have a total of more than 14,000 outlets across the city, have stored up three to five times reserve compared to that in normal days.
Residents can call 12345 and 12315 to report on hoarding and profiteering, and price gouging. The penalty could be as high as 3 million yuan (US$470,000) if the reports are found to be true.
Data from Shenzhen HiGreen, the city’s largest agricultural produce wholesale market in Longgang District, showed that the average price of 20 vegetables under monitoring is 5.2 yuan per kilogram, dropping 20 percent compared to the week between Feb. 27 and March 5. The market handled about 5,022 tons of vegetables a day in the past week. The vegetables were sourced from 19 production bases in China, where supplies from Guangdong, Yunnan and Shandong provinces took up 42 percent, 21 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
The HiGreen market’s entrance was bustling with trucks waiting to load vegetables and other fresh produce to retailers yesterday morning. It supplies food for 70 big supermarkets, e-retailers and fresh food franchises.
At the Walmart Nanshan Outlet, onsite shoppers are limited. But online orders have increased a lot, according to the store.
Online platform www.100.me has revealed its plan to ensure supplies, logistics and security after the Shenzhen government announced to launch three rounds of nucleic acid tests starting from yesterday.
The e-retailer has doubled supplies of daily essentials for the Shenzhen market and ensured that supplies could reach households in around 30 minutes.