pork Photo:VCG

China's going to release the second batch of 30,000 tons central reserve frozen pork in 2021 on Friday, eight days after the first release of 20,000 tons on January 7, according to a notice on the official website of the China Merchandise Reserve Management Center on Tuesday.

The release comes as China's pork prices have kept rising over the past month. Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday that pork prices rose 6.5 percent in December, compared with a 6.5-percent drop in November, driving the December CPI up by 0.28 percentage points, according to the NBS.

"Seasonally stronger pork demand toward the end of the year (especially amid the services sector recovery), tighter regulations for meat shipments across different regions in China, and limited pork imports due to the worsening COVID-19 situation in overseas markets may have jointly contributed to higher prices between December from November, Nomura said in a report it sent to the Global Times.

China has also been stepped up policy efforts to promote the recovery of the industry. China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice on Monday urging local governments to continue research into genetic enchantment for livestock, while stressing the need to support establishing more breeding farms.

According to the ministry, as of end-November, China's hog stocks and breeding sow stocks have already recovered to more than 90 percent against pre-African swine fever (ASF) levels, and could reach normal levels in the first half of 2021.

Nomura expected pork supplies may increase by 30 percent year-on-year in the spring of 2021.

In 2020, China executed 38 releases from frozen pork reserves, with a cumulative total of 670,000 tons being brought to market, according to calculations made by domestic news site Chinanews.com.