September 27, 2007

China's pork prices drop for seventh consecutive week

The average wholesale price of pork from Sept. 17 to 23 saw a week-on-week decline of 0.8 percent, said the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday, making it the seventh consecutive weekly drop in pork prices.

The ministry said this would probably be the last week of decline as demand surged during the upcoming National Day holiday and feedstuff prices were expected to stay high.

Prices of eggs went up by 0.1 percent. The ministry forecast egg prices would fall slightly as enterprises stopped buying eggs for the holidays.

China's pork prices have almost doubled in the past eight months due to short supply due to rising feed costs.

The price hikes of foodstuffs, which were partly due to short supply, drove up China's inflation to the highest rate in a decade.

To stem the price increases, the government has disbursed subsidies to cities, released pork reserves and sold off its corn stocks at lower than market prices.