A supermarket that sales funeral-related goods was recently open in Shenzhen. As the first one in China, supermarket signifies that China's funeral goods saling has taken a market mechanism.
In the supermarket, goods like funerary urns, funeral clothes and candles are placed on shelves, with prices ranging from ten yuan to over one thousand yuan. All goods in the market are labeled with prices, places of origin and materials that make them. The cheapest funeral urn costs only 50 yuan.
In recent years, whether the funeral industry should open to market and in what way it should open have become a heated topic in society. The public keep complaining that under a monopolized state, most funeral goods are sold with huge profit. Without a market system, there is a lack of transparency in setting the prices for these goods. It is expected that the newly opened supermarket can break the monopolized status and keep the prices of funeral goods down to a reasonable level.
The Shenzhen Funeral Management Bureau provided places for the running of the supermarket and a local company, the Xin'an Funeral Service Company will do the business operation. Right now, five domestic companies that produce funeral goods have put their goods on sale in the supermarket.
(China News Service March 3, 2006)
