August 1, 2005

Hong Kong frozen pork sales dip, prices up

A week after a mysterious pig disease hit China's Sichuan province, Hong Kong's pork sales have dropped 20-50 percent, though frozen pork prices have risen.

Hong Kong imports live pigs from China's Guangdong province and frozen pork from several other Chinese provinces such as Guangxi, Shandong and Sichuan. Its other sources of chilled and frozen pork include Brazil and Thailand.

While frozen pork used to sell for HK$13,000 (US$1,672) a tonne, it has since reached HK$16,000 (US$2,058) a tonne after the outbreak, according to Hong Kong's Chilled Meat and Poultry Association chairman Kwok Shi-hing.

On Jul 25, Chinese authorities banned Ziyang and Neijiang pork exports, but later extended the ban to all meat from the whole province on Jul 28.

However, that's not before 18,000 tonnes of frozen Sichuanese pork had entered Hong Kong this year, including some 5,000 tonnes from Ziyang and Neijiang.

Hong Kong retailers such as supermarket chains have now taken Sichuan frozen pork off the shelves, but sales of other pork products were already affected.

Kwok figured that there should not be much Sichuan frozen pork-imported shortly before China's ban-left unsold in Hong Kong markets, and also predicted traders would probably continue to avoid Sichuan pork even after the outbreak is controlled.