May 15, 2012

China sees slight decline in farm produce costs

In the week ended May 6, the prices of China's major farm produce monitored by MOFCOM faced a slight fall and that of materials for production dropped in three successive weeks.

The retail price of egg dropped 0.5% over the previous week, 9.3% percentage lower than that of the beginning of this year. The retail prices of egg in Beijing, Xiamen and Tianjin saw a decrease of 15.1%, 14.4% and 14.4% than that of the beginning of this year.

The wholesale prices of meat fell, of which pork continued to fell, 0.8% lower than that of the previous week, and 14.7% lower than that of the end of January.

The price of pork was RMB18 (US$2.85) per kg in Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, 24.1%, 23% and 19.9% lower than that of the end of January. The prices of chicken dropped 0.1% while that of beef and mutton rose 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.

The prices of grains and oil maintained a steady growth, of which peanut oil, soybean oil, wheat flour and rapeseed oil rose 0.3%, 0.3%, 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively, while that of rice remained unchanged.

The wholesale prices of eight aquatic productions rose 0.9% over the previous week, with an accumulative increase of 2% in three weeks, of which carp, grass carp and silver carp rose 2.4%, 2.3% and 1.1% over the previous week.