Can restricting exports on milk formula prove best for Hong Kong's babies?

"There was only one tin left at home, but we could not buy another tin of the same brand for a whole week," says Snowy, the mother of a 10-month-old girl, as she recalls the scramble for milk powder she and her husband went through during the Lunar New Year holiday.

"It was out of stock in every retailer we went to. Do you know how frustrating it is when you are being troubled by the same problem again and again? "

The 19-year-old mother and her husband drove around the city, to places as far apart as Tseung Kwan O, North Point and Tsuen Wan, but they left empty-handed. They had to ask their relatives to look out for them.

"Such a simple thing has taken so much of our time and has bothered so many people, just because the mainlanders emptied all our shelves and left us with nothing. Their visits have disrupted our daily life. The local government has a responsibility to guarantee local parents can buy the formula they want for their babies."

She is typical of many Hong Kong mothers who have scrambled to secure stocks of baby milk, which have become an increasingly popular purchase for "parallel traders" - those who buy large quantities of a product in Hong Kong to sell on the mainland, evading taxes and duties.

Widespread cross-border trading led the government to bar outbound travellers from taking more than two tins of formula out of the city in March.

Snowy's comments come despite claims the manufacturers of baby milk, who say they are importing more formula to the city than ever before - a claim backed by statistics.