Parents back call for baby formula exit tax
Angry parents struggling to buy milk formula for their babies have joined calls for a departure tax to be imposed on people taking unused supplies of infant formula out of Hong Kong.
They also want the government to set a limit on how many cans of baby formula people can carry across the border.
Two years after the shocking melamine milk contamination scandal, in which hundreds of thousands of babies were sickened on the mainland, people's faith in locally produced formula has not yet been restored. So much so that, according to lawmaker Wong Sing-chi, more and more people are coming to Hong Kong to stock up on supplies, resulting in an acute shortage in the city.
Many Hong Kong parents are complaining they cannot buy baby formula and that strong mainland demand is also driving up prices.
Wong said that in the past two days more than 600 residents in the northern New Territories, most of them parents and newlyweds, had signed his petition for a tax on infant formula leaving Hong Kong.
Among them is a Fanling mother of a two-year-old child who scoured her area for supplies. 'I went to shops in Fanling, Sheung Shui, Lok Fu, Kowloon Tong and Yuen Long this month. [But] I only got one can of milk powder in Yuen Long,' she said.
Manufacturers assured the government that there was an adequate supply of milk powder, Secretary for Food and Health Dr York Chow Yat-ngok said on Friday. But the mothers say otherwise.
'The shop owner in Lok Fu told me there would be no stock coming throughout the Lunar New Year,' the Fanling mother, who refused to give her name, said.
Other mothers told district councillors they had to feed their children soy milk and bananas. Some said that even soy milk had sold out.
Wong said the prices of some milk powder had surged about 20 per cent while the cost of other lines had doubled. While tourists did snap up some formula, it was the parallel traders - who carry the powder in luggage across the border to sell on the mainland - who were taking most of the stock.
Wong said: 'I saw cartons of milk powder being loaded on a truck in Sheung Shui's industrial zone. The truck unloaded the cartons near Cambridge Plaza [in Sheung Shui] and they were distributed to parallel traders.'
He said parallel traders could make a 30 per cent profit by selling the stock on the mainland.
The Democratic Party has proposed a 50 per cent tax on milk products taken out of Hong Kong to discourage parallel trading. If that does not work, they want the government to limit the amount of formula that a person can take across the border.
Wang said the police should also crack down on traders working in Hong Kong illegally.
While Chow said that such a tax would go against World Trade Organisation free trade agreements, parents have come up with other ideas to ensure milk powder is supplied to local children.
On popular online forum Baby Kingdom, one internet user suggested that buyers should have to show their child's birth certificate in a shop before they could purchase formula.
Others directed their anger at Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, who once encouraged Hong Kong people to have 'at least three children'.
'Officials complained about the low birth rate in Hong Kong. But mothers these days can't even buy a can of milk powder for their baby. How anyone would want to more babies?' one wrote.
