Pork price remains high due to short supply, MOC

Chinanews, Beijing, July 20 – Recently, pork price keeps rising in China. The public fear that in the near future, there might not be enough pork available in the market. In clearing such fears, Assistant Minister of Commerce Huang Hai said that Chinese government could guarantee enough pork supply in the market. Pork selling price might still remain high during the second half of the year; however, the short supply will come to an end by the end of the year, when supply and demand for pork remains at a balanced level. By then, he said, pork selling price will return to the normal range.
Since mid May this year, pork price has witnessed a major rise twice in many places across China. Recently, the pork price is still climbing up little by little.
The price hike is mainly boosted by the short supply of pork, said the assistant minister on Thursday.
At present, pigs are raised by individual farmers. Since these farmers can not share information effectively, sometimes pork supply will exceed demand, while at other times, the situation is vice versa. During the first half of 2006, the price of pigs dropped dramatically. In order to reduce raising costs, many farmers killed sows and sold the piglets at cheap prices. As a result, the number of fully grown pigs dropped dramatically during the first half of this year. In many abattoirs, the number of pigs that could be killed for meat also dropped tremendously. Consequently, less pork is available in the market.
The blue-ear disease occurred in some places across China this year and price of forage kept rising. All these added costs to pig raising. In addition, heat wave swept over some places across China and floods occurring in these places destroyed roads, making pork delivery difficult.
It usually takes about half a year for a piglet to fully grow. So the problem of short pork supply can not be solved in the short term. Pork price might remain high during the second half of the year. If there are serious natural disasters or epidemic diseases occurring at that time, pork price might further climb in some parts of China, the assistant minister said.