June 7, 2012

China's farm produces prices head for fifth weekly decline

The prices of China's farm produce dropped for its fifth consecutive week starting from May 28 to June 3, based on a report released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday (June 7).

Egg prices halted the decline since the beginning of this year and picked up by 2.6% from the previous week.

The price of pork, a staple meat for Chinese, dipped 0.9% from a week earlier while beef, mutton and chicken prices respectively edged up 0.5%, 0.3% and 0.1%.

Edible oil prices kept a mild rise last week, with rapeseed oil, peanut oil and soy oil prices up 0.4%, 0.3% and 0.1% on-week.

The fall in farm produce prices may help ease domestic inflationary pressures as food prices account for a near one-third weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation. The country's CPI rose 3.4% year on year in April, easing slightly from the 3.6% rate registered in March.

China is scheduled to release the inflation and other economic data starting from the coming weekend.