April 20, 2012

China's edible agricultural produce prices drop for four straight weeks

In the week ending April 15, edible agricultural produce prices in China declined for a fourth consecutive week, the Ministry of Commerce reported on Tuesday (Apr 17).

The wholesale price of 18 staple vegetables declined 6.2% last week on increasing market supply, and has cumulatively slumped 13.5% in the past four weeks.

Pork prices have decreased for 11 weeks in a row, falling 1.4% last week and 13.7% from late January, according to the report.

Retail prices of edible oil continued to rise last week, with prices of peanut oil, soy oil and rapeseed oil respectively up 0.4%, 0.3% and 0.1% from the preceding week.

Food prices have a one-third weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI), the major gauge of inflation. China's CPI rebounded to 3.6% in March, after easing to a 20-month low of 3.2% in February.