City's food reserves can last 6 mo.
- Source: Global Times
- [08:26 April 13 2011]
- Comments
By Yan Shuang
The city has enough day-to-day supplies in storage to meet people's needs in an emergency, according to the Municipal Commission of Commerce Monday.
Government storage of grain and oil is sufficient to meet needs for half a year, commission deputy director Shu Wei said during a Beijing Public Service Radio program on Monday. The municipal government has stockpiled 18 types of essentials since 1992, including meat, grain, oil, eggs and dairy products, he said.
Beijing has enough salt to last two months, and "residents need not worry about the supply of daily necessities in the city," Shu said while discussing the frenzy of salt purchasing that followed rumors of radiation drifting to China from Japan's damaged nuclear reactor.
Products added to the storage list in recent years include vegetables, milk powder, candles, bottled water and instant noodles, according to Shu.
The government has 12 distribution centers in six districts and more than 200 supermarket outlets citywide to make sure residents can buy the necessities they need, even during emergencies, according to a storage distribution section employee surnamed Zhao.
"The government stores the necessities with several enterprises in the city," Zhao said. "In an emergency, for example, if cold weather has affected vegetable deliveries to Beijing, the vegetables we have stored will be distributed to residents through supermarket outlets."
Zhao refused to say what the government has spent on storage or the locations where supplies are stashed.
Supermarkets usually have an inventory cycle of five to seven days, and the commission is calling on them to prolong the cycle to 10 to 15 days, Shu said.
"When there is a shortage, we'll have to deliver goods from our distribution centers when the inventory in our own store runs short," said an employee surnamed Zhang with a Jingkelong Supermarket on Zhenzhi Lu in Chaoyang district.
"Usually we don't have problems. But the salt frenzy got us, and during that time we had to go to the distribution center several times a day," she said.
