A woman browses through the fresh meat section at a supermarket in Beijing on Friday. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said pork prices in the second week of March have declined for seven consecutive weeks. Photo: cnsphoto

The price of pork in China declined further during the first three weeks in January, following the government's efforts to stabilize supplies and prices of vegetables and meat as the Spring Festival approaches.

Over the past week, the wholesale price of pork was 26.24 yuan ($4.14) per kilogram, a decline of 2.6 percent compared with the previous week, China Media Group reported on Sunday.

Price of pork, a staple meat in the country, is essential to the consumer price index (CPI) as well as livelihood.

A seller surnamed Yan at a supermarket in Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province told the Global Times on Sunday that the pork price has seen a continuous decline this month of 2 to 3 yuan per kilogram, as slaughtering enterprises have increased pork supplies.

Xin Guochang, a senior official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said on Friday that the nation's pig stock reached 449 million at the end of 2021, an increase of 10.5 percent over the 2020 level.

As pork production recovers and supply increases, prices during the Spring Festival will continue to fall, Wang Zuli, deputy researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"Lower demand for pork in the first month of 2022 may also cause prices to decline. During November and December in 2021, many families in China made pork meatballs and cured sausages [for the Spring Festival], which means more demand for pork compared with January," Wang noted.

The Spring Festival in 2022 falls on February 1.

Analysts attributed the main source of the CPI slowdown in the last few months of 2021 to falls in food prices, particularly pork. 

In December, the CPI rose 1.5 percent year-on-year, but that was a slowdown of 0.3 percentage points from November. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the growth of pork prices plummeted 11.8 percentage points compared with November.

Wang said that in order to stabilize pork supplies and prices, the authorities should strengthen pork reserves to regulate market supply and demand, as well as providing market information to enterprises in a timely manner, so that they can make better decisions on supply.

Global Times