KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 20): Market regulators across China have stepped up crackdown on price hikes for epidemic-related products, in a bid to meet surging demand and protect consumers' legal rights.
In a report on Dec 18, Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times (GT) said regulators have conducted inspections at key areas such as superstores, pharmacies and nucleic acid testing sites, and a number of business entities face investigations for inflating the prices of some epidemic-related materials.
It said that in addition, localities also announced a series of illicit cases in which pharmacies forced consumers to buy epidemic-related materials packed with other products.
GT said that in order to ensure the public's demand for medical supplies under the new situation of epidemic prevention and control, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council set up a task force on medical supplies, urging centrally administered enterprises involved in drugs to make every effort to ensure the supply of medical materials.
It said Sinopharm has deployed more than 160 pharmaceutical enterprises to ensure supply and increase production, and the production capacity of key products for epidemic prevention and control has been expanded to three times the daily capacity, while large quantities have been put into retail terminals.