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A piglet stands in an enclosure on a pig farm in Tianjin, China, on February 2, 2018.
Giulia Marchi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Pork prices in China soared 46.7% in a month in August, as the country faced a growing shortage of meat in the context of the swine fever epidemic that killed millions of pigs.
This was a much larger increase than the pork price in July, which jumped 27% from the previous year.
Rising pork prices contributed to a 10% increase in food prices in August, according to data released Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics of China.
Nearly half of the Chinese pig population is estimated to have died as a result of the protracted swine fever epidemic discovered more than a year ago. According to an analyst at the Dutch bank Rabobank in July, the Chinese pig herd could be cut in half by the end of the year.
Prices for other meats in China also increased in August, contributing to higher food prices. Prices for beef, mutton and chicken all rose – between 11.6% and 12.5%.
Prices for fresh fruit continued to increase in August, up 24% from the previous year, but were up less than July (around 39%).
Overall, the Producer Price Index (PPI), a barometer of business profitability, lost 0.8% in August from the previous year – the worst contraction year-over-year since August 2016.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 2.8% year on year in August, unchanged from July. This compared to a 2.6% increase forecast by analysts.
Consumer prices in the country are expected to increase further, according to a note released Tuesday by the research firm Capital Economics.
"Consumer price inflation is expected to accelerate over the next few months, as hog inventories continue to fall and oil prices decline," explains the authors. economists Julian Evans-Pritchard and Martin Rasmussen.
"But the upcoming cuts (reserve ratio) announced last Friday are in line with our view that spiraling food price inflation is not an obstacle to monetary easing and we continue to anticipate a slowdown. new loosening in the coming quarters, "they wrote.
They alluded to the announcement by the Chinese central bank on Friday that it would reduce the amount of money that banks must keep in reserve as the country seeks to further stimulate its economy.
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