February 23, 2012

China's farm produce prices fall

China's farm produce prices, including pork, continued to decline last week amid increasing supplies, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

Egg prices dropped 1.8% from one week earlier, marking the seventh consecutive week of decline. The prices were down 4.2%, cumulatively from early January, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Pork, mutton and chicken prices retreated by 1.3%, 0.3% and 0.2% last week, respectively, while the wholesale prices of eight types of aquatic products edged up by 0.1%.

The fall in farm produce prices may help ease domestic inflationary pressures as food prices have a one-third weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI).

The CPI rebounded to 4.5% in January after easing to a 15-month low of 4.1% in December.