November 24, 2011

Food prices in China continued to fall in the week ending November 20, which marked the decline for the fifth week running, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Tuesday (Nov 22).

The wholesale price of pork dropped 1.7% from the previous week and had accumulatively declined 9.8% since the middle of September. Prices of beef and mutton respectively rose 0.5% and 0.8% while chicken prices kept unchanged with the preceding week. Prices of eight major aquatic products edged down 0.3% on-week.

Average wholesale prices for 18 types of vegetables continued to rise for two weeks running and added 1.5% last week. Retail prices of grain and oils basically stayed stable last week.

With consecutive fall of food prices, the country's inflation pressure is expected to be further eased. The October CPI growth marked the slowest surge since May this year, softening to 5.5% on-year from 6.1% in September, 6.2% in August, 6.5% in July and 6.4% in June. Food prices, which account for nearly one third in the basket of goods in the nation's CPI calculation, moved up 11.9% in October from a year earlier.