Measures to ensure holiday hog supply

CHINA will take measures to ensure stable pork supply for the upcoming New Year and Spring Festival holidays, the country’s top economic planner said yesterday.

Amid efforts to boost hog production through central budget support, the country is also channeling supply of alternatives including poultry and seafood, Meng Wei, spokeswoman for the National Development and Reform Commission, said.

China’s central and local governments will release more frozen pork reserves in the market to meet the holiday season demand, and will also guarantee holiday meat supply by expanding imports, Meng said.

Meanwhile, China’s pork market may beat expectations with balanced supply and demand during the upcoming Chinese New Year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said.

The MARA statistics showed that hog prices had fallen for four straight weeks by late November amid signs of hog production recovery nationwide.

The pig herd in 400 counties monitored by the MARA last month rebounded on a monthly basis for the first time since November 2018, while the number of breeding sows rose 4 percent month on month in November.

As the pork supply is gradually being restored, the month-on-month growth rate of pork prices in November was 3.8 percent, down 16.3 percentage points from October, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

China’s consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 4.5 percent year on year in November, mainly driven by surging pork prices, which rose 101.3 percent year on year last month, contributing nearly two-thirds of the CPI growth.

(Xinhua)