China said on Monday it will scrap export rebates for 84
agricultural products as of Thursday in effort to discourage
exports of farm produce in a nation where food prices drove
inflation to an 11-year high in November.
The products include wheat, oat, maize, paddy, rice, broomcorn,
soybean, and their powder bi-products, according to a circular
posted on the Ministry of Finance (MOF) website on Monday.
Exporters would be given a cushion period through February 29 if
they can not negotiate a change in the export prices on the
contracts signed before Thursday, the circular released by the MOF
and the State Administration of Taxation said.
Exporters needed to report the contracts to the taxation
authorities before December 31 if they wanted to be entitled to the
cushion period.
China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation,
jumped to an 11-year-high of 6.9 percent in November mainly on food
price increases. Prices of food, which has a 33 percent weighting
on CPI, soared 18.2 percent last month.
(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2007)