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CreateTime:2008-04-14 Editor:liaoyan
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KRAFT Foods Inc, the world's second-largest food maker, and Coca-Cola Co say food-tracking rules awaiting Chinese government approval will add to inflation, already at an 11-year high in China.
The draft food safety law requires companies to add an electronic identification code to every package, which the companies say will raise costs without addressing the most pressing problems, Bloomberg News reported.
Kraft, Coca-Cola and Chinese companies including beverage-maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co and milk producer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group have all expressed opposition to the tracking system.
Additional costs "would have to be passed on to consumers," Kraft said.
"As our products are very price-sensitive, this would be detrimental to consumers and to our business."
Inflation in China has quickened to the fastest pace in 11 years as pork prices almost doubled in the past year and soybean oil jumped 64 percent. Consumer prices could keep rising because of higher costs of imported goods, the central bank said yesterday.
Coca-Cola and Yili, China's biggest dairy producer by stock market value, are among at least 16 food and beverage companies who sent a petition in January to China's legislature and cabinet opposing the tracking system.
"This not only will not help improve product and food safety management, but will further push up continuously increasing food prices," a copy of the petition obtained by Bloomberg News says.
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