May 3, 2012

China's farm produce prices recoil after five-week drop

In the week ending April 29, China's edible agricultural produce prices gained slightly following a five-week drop, the Ministry of Commerce reported on Wednesday (May 2).

As persistent rainfalls affected supply of some agricultural products, the wholesale price of 18 staple vegetables picked up last week and led the rise of farm produce prices. Besides, mounting cost of raw materials, labour and transportation continued to push up edible oil prices for four weeks running.

However, pork and egg prices have maintained the decline trend for several months.

The wholesale price of 18 staple vegetables increased 2.4% last week and the retail prices of edible oil presented an overall rise, with prices of peanut oil, soy oil and rapeseed oil respectively up 0.6%, 0.1% and 0.1% from the previous week.

Pork prices have been sliding persistently after the Spring Festival holiday (January 22-28), dipping 0.1% last week and falling 14.1% since late January, according to the report.

Retail prices of egg dipped 0.5% from the preceding week and slumped 8.9% from the beginning of this year.

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.