The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Sunday urged local authorities to strengthen price regulation, especially of tents and other materials that can be used for temporary shelter.

Local price regulators could use temporary measures to stabilize prices of tent cloth, steel tubing and polystyrene, and to ensure the supply and transportation of resources closely related to quake-relief needs, said an emergency notice issued in Beijing by the NDRC.

The notice also ordered relevant parties to carry out daily monitoring and price controls and punish speculators.

Temporary controls were imposed on May 14 on food prices and transportation fares in the quake-hit provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi and in Chongqing municipality to stem hoarding and speculation.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2008)