News Pigs
China markets pork from stock
China will bring more frozen pork from its state reserves to the market today (July 10). This is to limit price increases after prices rose sharply in June, partly as a result of the corona crisis.
The country sells 20.000 tons of pork today, according to a statement from the China Merchandise Reserve Management Center. This meat comes from the meat reserves of the Chinese government. On June 23, a large quantity of approximately 23.000 tons of pork was also offered from the state reserves. This brings the total sales of frozen pork this year to 430.000 tons.
China is making the state reserves available because of the sharply rising prices. In June, domestic wholesale pork prices rose as much as 16%, the largest monthly increase since October.
Import ban
Chinese pork prices were already high amid shrinking domestic pig numbers due to African swine fever outbreaks. China is also struggling with large-scale corona infections among staff, as a result of which imports from several slaughterhouses have been stopped. This import stop has made pork even scarcer and prices have risen sharply. The import ban applies to several European and Brazilian slaughterhouses and Dutch slaughterhouses also cannot escape the export ban.
The marketing of the state reserves can be explained by the price increases. On the other hand, the sale is striking, given the import ban that the country is struggling with. As the country has stopped importing from dozens of overseas producers and is now further thinning its frozen stock. It is not known how high China's state pork reserves really are, so China may have enough leeway.
Chanti Oussoren
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