January 13, 2012

Due to imbalance of supply and demand in Hanoi, Vietnam during the nine-day Lunar New Year festival starting January 22, prices of meat are forecast to increase sharply.

Prices of pork are expected to rise by 10-15% due to supply fall caused by cold weather and reoccurrence of diseases, the newspaper reported Thursday (Jan 12). Currently live pigs are selling at VND57,000 (US$2.71) per kilogramme compared to VND55,000 (US$2.62) last month.

Due to deceasing supply, chicken prices are forecast to soar by 50%. Prices of chicken raised by small-scale farming are expect to be VND180,000-200,000 (US$8.56-9.51) per kilogramme.

Earlier the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Livestock Department said that Vietnam will have sufficient supply of meat for January.

The country already imported 115,000 tonnes of meat in addition of local supply of 235,000 tonnes of pork and 35,000 tonnes of chicken.