As the traditional Spring Festival approaches, the overpricing of souvenirs and food at China's major airports has been denounced by the mass media. And the media's efforts are now paying off.

In the past few weeks, the media revealed that the country's major airports all set unreasonable prices on their goods.

A journalist in Guangzhou reported that sticky rice chicken, a local snack normally costing three yuan (US$ 0.36), was sold for 13 yuan (US$ 1.57) at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport.

Another journalist with China Business Daily wrote an article describing a customer's "painful" experience at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport. The article says the customer has left his souvenirs downtown and has to buy some toys at the airport at a much higher price.

A Xinhua reporter found that a bottle of brand name wine, usually sold for 30 yuan (US$ 3.63) in supermarkets, was priced at 120 yuan (US$ 14.52) at Kunming International Airport.

Innumerable similar cases have been reported.

Journalists have also interviewed a great number of passengers, asking their opinion about the overpriced goods.

The passengers say that they feel angry but sometimes they have no choice. They sincerely hope the situation could be changed.

The overseas branches of Xinhua News Agency have written articles explaining that souvenirs in other country's airports, while not cheap, are rarely so overpriced, suggesting that by selling goods at a more reasonable price Chinese airports could meet international standards.

Reacting on the intense media criticism, officials and economists have expressed their views.

Chen Li, deputy director of the research institute under the Economic Restructuring Office of the State Council, said that shops in airports always cooperate to raise prices so that they can keep out competition and generate substantial profits. In a sense, they have formed their own monopoly. However, this monopoly upsets the rules of a market economy.

Economists say that despite China's entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China still lacks relevant laws and regulations to better administrate the market.

Recently, the Beijing pricing administration suggested that Beijing Capital International Airport should lower its commercial rent by 40 to 60 percent to help the shops lower their prices. However, economists have recommended that the government should increase tax rates for shops which overprice goods.

In addition, earlier reports said that McDonald's, the American fast food giant, has opened an outlet in Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. Its reasonable prices and food quality will challenge its Chinese counterparts.

Experts say that with China's WTO entry, the country will further open its market and introduce fair competition. The shops and sellers in airports, trains, ferries and parks will not have the opportunity to maintain their high prices in the future.

Sources from BeijingNews.com.cn commented that the fact that people are focusing on airports' overpriced goods shows that more and more Chinese can now afford to travel by air. Their standard of living has improved. They also highly rated the country's mass media of their supervision role.

(China Daily February 3, 2002)