Beijing Daily Messenger
December 19, 2009

The price of cooking oil has jumped over the past few weeks, reported the China Daily this morning:

The price of 5-liter bottles of cooking oil, such as soybean oil and peanut oil, increased by 10 yuan on average this month, the China News Service reported yesterday. Some residents in cities such as Shenyang, Chengdu, Shanghai and Fuzhou, began hoarding cooking oil last week.

But officials from the National Development and Reform Commission said on Monday that serious inflation is unlikely to happen.

Today's Beijing Daily Messenger reported that the Beijing government has stepped in to stabilize the market:

The Beijing Municipal Commerce Commission issued a notice yesterday regarding the purchase limitations on cooking oil that some supermarkets have put in place. The notice said that sellers may not conduct volume or time-limited sales promotions for cooking oil, and that there is not currently a shortage of cooking oil on the Beijing market at the present time.

Talk of a price hike on cooking oil has been circulating since the beginning of December, and many city residents have begun buying four or five bottles at a time to stockpile at home. Small-scale vendors have even taken advantage of supermarket price promotions to buy large quantities of cooking oil in the hopes of making a tidy profit after the price goes up. In response, some supermarkets have limited purchases to two bottles per customer. A notice issued by the Municipal Commerce Commission yesterday told citizens not to panic: "Stocks and sales of cooking oil in Beijing are entirely normal. There is no undersupply problem."

The Commission asked the government and private enterprises to strengthen their communication with suppliers in order to supplement and expand the timely release of cooking oil stocks so that shelves can remain stocked and shortages and stockouts can be avoided. It also asked that cooking oil sales be closely monitored, and any shortages and bulk purchases immediately reported to the Commission.