Authorities urged to ensure holiday supplies

The Ministry of Commerce recently held a teleconference with provincial-level commercial authorities, asking them to ensure the supply of goods and keep prices stable during the upcoming holidays, while keeping COVID-19 under control, ministry spokesman Gao Feng said.

The ministry has asked authorities to ensure markets and retailers diversify their offerings to meet consumers' needs, Gao said at a news conference on Thursday.

While adhering to control and prevention measures, authorities should also ensure that a certain number of markets, online retailers, food delivery and courier services are open for business as usual.

Besides instructing these businesses to secure stable transportation services and diversify their supply channels, the ministry also urged authorities to replenish the government's reserves of meat and vegetables to meet demand during the holiday seasons.

In another development, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration jointly issued a notice asking companies to guarantee supplies of grain and oil during the New Year and Spring Festival holidays as well as during the two-sessions political gathering next year.

Ministry to curb risk of virus amid travel rush

The Ministry of Transport will work to ensure that COVID-19 doesn't spread during the upcoming Spring Festival travel rush, a ministry official said on Friday.

The travel period will last for 40 days－from Jan 17 to Feb 25－Cai Tuanjie, director of the ministry's department of transport service, said at a news conference.

Estimates show that passenger volume during the travel rush will be double what it was during the same period in 2020.

Transportation authorities expect to face challenges as they strive to maintain epidemic control and prevention measures while ensuring smooth traffic and adequate transportation during the rush, which coincides with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the annual two sessions meeting.

To address these challenges, the ministry will instruct transportation companies to check health codes, increase the number of entrances to stations, restrict the number of passengers and sterilize and ventilate vehicles, Cai said.

The ministry will also instruct operators to boost epidemic control and prevention efforts and to avoid importing COVID-19 cases via land and water ports.

It will urge local authorities to strengthen monitoring of traffic during peak travel times and on roads that are susceptible to bad weather or prone to accidents, and to issue traffic reports so people can travel in an orderly manner.

Cai added that the ministry also will encourage local authorities to increase capacity at places such as transport hubs and tourist attractions to better coordinate services with railways and airlines and curb the stranding of large numbers of passengers, among other measures.