FACTBOX-Measures to curb Asia's spiraling food prices

(Reuters) - Governments across Asia have introduced subsidies and have limited sales of staple commodities such as rice, wheat, pork and cooking oil to combat soaring food prices that are pinching consumers at the tills.

The following is a list of recent moves:

CHINA:

-- Prices of pork more than doubled over the year to November 2007, after an outbreak of blue-ear disease among pigs devastated China's pig industry.

-- On Dec 19. the government promised to double subsidies to pig farmers, from 50 to 100 yuan per sow, and said it would sell pork from state reserves to meet demand for the staple meat.

-- Beijing announced this month it was temporarily controlling prices of flour, rice, noodles, cooking oil and milk, after global prices surged. Producers and sellers of these items need official permission to raise prices.

BANGLADESH:

-- Rice prices have doubled over the past year, as millions of tonnes of rice were wiped out by a massive cyclone in November and floods in July-September that killed more than 1,000 people.

-- On Jan 9. the government started selling cut-price rice, allowing each family to pay 40 percent less than the open market price. Nearly 16 million poor people are slated to receive free rice and wheat, and the government wants to import additional rice from neighbors.

INDONESIA:

-- The import duty on rice was cut by 18 percent on December 28, helping main state importer Bulog offset higher world prices.

-- Jakarta imports nearly 70 percent of its soybean, which is processed into tofu and soy sauce. On January 16 the government asked Bulog to look for cheaper soybean imports, as prices in its main exporter the United States have surged 80 percent on the Chicago Board of Trade in 2007.

-- On January 9 the government scrapped a 10 percent import duty on soybean to offset soaring prices.

-- Officials will also distribute free soybean seedlings to farmers and revive soybean producing-areas to boost domestic output and reduce dependence on imports.

PAKISTAN:

-- Prices of wheat flour used to make roti or unleavened bread, the main component of the Pakistani diet, increased 30 percent in December from a few months earlier.