The mainland's pricing watchdog warned yesterday that it would severely punish profiteering and price fixing of baby milk formula as parents worried about a possible price spike.
In an urgent directive, the National Development and Reform Commission ordered its branches to watch for any price fluctuations and signs of baby-formula stockpiling.
It also authorised price regulators to use arbitrary curbs in accordance with a special NDRC provision to offset a dramatic rise in formula prices.
The provision, introduced in January as the cost of consumer goods soared, stipulates that manufacturers must apply to regulators before raising prices and allows lower-level governments to set price caps for some key commodities and profit ceilings for manufacturers.
Parents are scrambling to find safe alternative milk powder, such as premium foreign brands, that have not tested positive for melamine.
Melamine-tainted baby formula has killed four infants and made 6,200 babies ill.
Ge Weihong , the mother of a four-month-old boy, said she fed him baby formula by Qingdao's Shengyuan, one of 22 dairies on the official blacklist.