The Council of Agriculture (COA) must keep a sharp eye on rice and pork prices and undertake corrective measures if necessary, Premier Jiang Yi-huah warned at today's Cabinet meeting.
"Rice and pork are both daily necessities, so fluctuations in their prices are a matter of great public concern and also influence commodity prices across the marketplace," the premier explained.
Jiang asked the COA and Fair Trade Commission to strengthen their inspections of whether sellers are hoarding or colluding to raise prices and to enlist the help of prosecutorial agencies to conduct joint investigations if necessary. "Actions which distort the market must be redressed in the shortest possible time," he emphasized.
With respect to importation, which has been previously discussed as a method to lower prices, Jiang stated that claims that citizens may ingest ractopamine from foreign pork are completely incorrect, as none of the pork imported into Taiwan would contain traces of this hormone. The COA must do more to inform the public of this fact, he said.
"Any pork brought into Taiwan would be imported under strict controls by the National Animal Industry Foundation," he reiterated, "and should not adversely affect domestic pork nor cause its price to nosedive, because the import would be intended to merely meet demand for the Dragon Boat Festival (June 2 this year)."
The premier also ordered the COA to step up publicity for its policy of encouraging farmers to grow, sellers to sell and consumers to eat only fine-quality rice, saying that it can make the use of premium rice a common practice among citizens.