Liu Minxia

DESPITE the rise in global food prices, imported food prices in Shenzhen are stable for the time being, relieving expatriates’ fears of surging food costs.

Leading retailers, such as Carrefour, Jusco and China Resources Vanguard, all said imported food prices had remained unchanged although some admitted they had felt the pinch of soaring sourcing prices.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said it had kept prices of most imported food stable, and had increased prices of imported rice by only about 20 percent and those of imported edible oil by about 30 percent.

“We don’t want to pass on increases in our sourcing prices to customers right away. But if global food prices keep rising, we’ll hike imported food prices after the May Day holidays in order to maintain our margins,” Nancy Yang, a public relations manager with Shenzhen Aeon Friendship Co., operator of Jusco, said yesterday.

Jusco sells foods imported mainly from Japan and South Korea. Yang said Jusco would consider customers’ buying power and start with only a few kinds of imported food.

Olé, a high-end supermarket under China Resources Vanguard, which has the largest variety of imported foods in Shenzhen, didn’t plan any price hikes in the near future and was trying to maintain margins through negotiations with suppliers, according to a public relations manager surnamed Zhan.

Retailers are not alone in the fight against soaring input costs. Western food restaurants and luxury hotels, which import a large proportion of their raw materials from overseas countries, are also doing their part to keep food prices stable.

“For now, we don’t plan to increase prices of food offered at our western food restaurants and we are trying hard to control the cost by minimizing waste,” Jiang Weiwei of Marco Polo Hotel said yesterday.

“We are still keeping a close eye on the situation and haven’t decided whether to increase prices yet,” Zhou Boxiang, public relations manager with Shangri-La Hotel in Luohu District. “If everyone else is raising prices, it’s hard to buck the trend.”

Raindrops Café, the city’s largest Western food restaurant chain with about 30 outlets throughout the six districts, said it had increased prices of some staple food, like rice and noodles, only by a small margin.

“It’s hard to keep prices unchanged now, but we hope to attract more customers by lowering prices of certain kinds of foods,” said marketing manager of Raindrops who identified himself only by his surname Tan.

But experts warn that the city’s retailing and catering industries should learn from this and make better preparations to hedge potential price rises.

“Many retailers and restaurants are affected by the current global food price rises and, sooner or later, they will have to raise prices to maintain their margins,” Chen Shaohua, secretary general of Shenzhen Cuisine Association, said yesterday.

“As Shenzhen becomes more international, with more foreigners living in or visiting the city, they will source more from the global market and should consider how to deal with such situations.”

Food accounts for a third of China’s consumer price index (CPI), which is near a 12-year high at the moment. In the first three months of 2008, the CPI rose 8 percent from a year earlier, but if food inflation was deducted, it was only 1.2 percent higher, according to the national statistics.