Concerned government agencies have applied a price ceiling on 538 milkproducts for children under six years old, according to the Ministry ofFinance.

The move came three months after the agencies appliedGovernment measures to stabilise the products' prices, said ministryofficials.

Last June, the Government approved the ministry'sproposal for a price ceiling on the products and viewed it as one of themeasures needed to control prices.

The ministry reported that with the regulation, the prices of the milk products had so far fallen by 0.3 to 34 percent.

Mostcities and provinces have organised delegations to inspect the pricecap implementation and found that most traders and producers haveobeyed. Also, the businesses have registered the prices of theseproducts with State offices in line with existing regulations.

In cases of violations, the inspection delegations imposed nearly 62 million VND (2,910 USD) in fines on offenders.

Tobetter implement the regulation, the ministry required concernedagencies in cities and provinces to continuously supervise the price capimplementation and make a monthly report on it to the ministry.

Besidesinstructing customs, tax and price management agencies to determineprice caps, the ministry will also continuously co-ordinate with theMinistry of Health to scrutinise and add more milk products to the list.

According to Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of the ministry'sPricing Management Department, the cap will be maintained till June2015, and the ministry will submit a summary report on it to the PrimeMinister.

The cap could be removed after June if the milk marketstabilises. However, if the market remains bad, the ministry will askthe Prime Minister to extend the cap's implementation.-VNA