Chinese vendors sell pork and other meat products at their stalls in a market in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province in June. Photo: IC

The outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) has stabilized in China, relevant policies and measures have resulted in the recovery of hog production, and the situation is improving, said officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MOARA) on Thursday. 

Since September, with the intensive introduction of policies and measures to promote the recovery of pork production capacity and market supply, the tension of periodic tight supply of pork has been eased to some extent, Tang Ke, head of the Department of Market and Economic Information of MOARA, said on Thursday during a press conference.

"The constant rising pork prices have prompted pork producers to replenish herds and resume production," Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at hog market information provider soozhu.com, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The month-on-month decline in pig stocks was 3 percent in September, narrowing from 9.8 percent in August. Meanwhile, the number of pigs available for breeding decreased 9.1 percent over the previous month in August and 2.8 percent in September. The two figures declined for the first time since March 2019, according to the MOARA data.

"Farmers and large breeding enterprises have expanded the proportion of pigs compared to pork production, which means that the industry is willing to resume production," said Feng. He added that in the past few months, the stock of pigs has increased by hundreds of thousands.

"The market is positive about the hog production. The market supply of pork will gradually increase, and is expected to return to the normal level next year," Ma Wenfeng, a senior analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

The increase in the market price of hog dropped from 5.0 percent to 1.6 percent in September, the rise of pork price decreased from 6.3 percent to 1.0 percent. 

The price rise of pork is related to the outbreak of ASF. By Wednesday, a total of 157 cases of ASF have been reported nationwide, and 1.192 million pigs have been culled, according to statistics.

The outbreak of ASF has been under control, but the threat has not been completely removed, Feng warned as the MOARA announced two cases of ASF outbreak recently and said the work of prevention and control of ASF remains severe.

"Due to the sharp decline in pig production caused by ASF and the pig imports insufficient to make up for the shortage of China's pork market, the price of pork has seen significant rise, which has severely restricted the consumption and is also an important reason for the rise in CPI," Ma noted.

China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 3 percent on a yearly basis in September, the highest so far this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. Pork prices rose 69.3 percent year on year last month, while the growth rate narrowed on the month-on-month basis.

"As the supply of hogs gradually increases, the price of pork will decrease, resulting in decline of CPI. But it will take a while to see the result," said Feng.

But Ma noted that the price of pork has peaked at present, and it will fall back.