"The day's highest, lowest and median wholesale pork prices should be made open for public reference. The fact is they are not secrets anymore and are widely known within the trade," Liberal Party lawmaker Tommy Cheung Yu-yan said at RTHK's City Forum.

He said he himself is reluctant to press for legislation, and expressed the hope the trade would adopt the measures for the collective benefit of the public, restaurants and wet market vendors.

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"You need to open up the information flow because if you don't, it will be just like screaming out `there's a fire' in a cinema. People trampling on each other is what kills rather than the fire actually burning people," Cheung said.

He said he had spoken to government officials about the idea, but they were concerned about the difficulty of implementing it because pork traders would be reluctant to speak about the prices.

Pork Traders General Association of Hong Kong vice chairman Hui Wai-kin maintained supplies have been scarce since the start of the new year.

"This latest issue first surfaced in early December ... if you compare January figures of mainland pork imports with that of the past two years, you will notice that there have been shortages of about 300 to 400 pigs daily," he said.

"If you have two months of shortages consecutively, how can you not have a tense market then?"

Fresh Meat Alliance spokesman Jackie Ling Wai-yip reiterated buyers did not manipulate prices.

Ling said they would only hurt their own interests if they did so.

According to the figures from the Food and Health Bureau, a total of 3,600 pigs will be imported from the mainland today.

Together with Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse's stock of about 2,000 and another 100 from local farms, there will be 5,700 pigs for the entire city, compared to 5,316 yesterday.

On Wednesday, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen announced that the Ministry of Commerce had pledged that Hong Kong would be supplied with 4,000 pigs a day, or 1.7 million a year, while keeping the SAR government informed everyday on the number of pigs to be sent the following day.

The new policies came after wholesale prices shot up to HK$2,400 per 100 catties on Tuesday, a historical high amid widespread inflationary fears for Hong Kong.