The legal system for agricultural product prices needs to be re-examined
On the premise that the market plays a decisive role in allocating resources, the prices of agricultural products are usually determined by the market, and the government, as the regulator of the agricultural product market, must keep its direct intervention in agricultural product prices to a minimum.
In our country, the Price Law, which serves as the basic law for adjusting price relations for agricultural products, was enacted in 1997. Although from the perspective of that time it was a very good law, it played a very important role in promoting the development of our country's market economy.
However, more than 10 years later, now that the economic reform goal of letting the market play a decisive role in resource allocation and better leveraging the government's role has been established, re-examining our country's legal system for agricultural product prices formed on the basis of the Price Law, it is not difficult to find that there are quite a few problems, which need to be improved in accordance with the basic direction of the current economic reform.
In essence, the basic goal of the legal system for agricultural product prices is to safeguard a sustained and stable relative balance between the social supply of and demand for agricultural products. Based on the commodity nature and social nature of agricultural products and the weakness of agriculture, against the background of the market playing a decisive role in allocating resources, the current legal system for agricultural product prices should undergo a model transformation and, in accordance with changes in the goals of economic reform, focus on regulating monopolistic conduct in the agricultural product market and regulating unfair competition conduct in agricultural product prices.
At the same time, the systems for price protection and temporary purchase and storage of agricultural products, the system for price caps on agricultural products, as well as supporting legal systems related to agricultural product prices, such as the reserve system for important agricultural products, the system for disclosure of agricultural product market information, the system for regulating the import and export of agricultural products, and the system for allocating and supplying agricultural products, should be improved.