A staff member arranges frozen pork at a dispatch site of an on-line shopping service in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Aug. 13, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

 
Top producer Muyuan Foods said in a statement on its official WeChat on Saturday that in order to ensure that prices stay within a reasonable range and market pork supply is sufficient, the company will increase the supply of pigs for the holidays. 

Guangdong Wens Foodstuffs Group said on its WeChat account on Saturday that the company will increase the supply of pork for the National Day holidays and work to keep prices reasonable.

Recently, pork prices have been at record highs. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the average price in the wholesale market nationwide hit 31.08 yuan ($4.36 yuan) per kilogram on Friday, up 1.2 percent from a week earlier.

Prices are expected to keep growing at least until mid-2023, but the rate of increase is likely to be modest under the price stabilization mechanism, Wu Chaoming, deputy head of the Chasing Research Institute, told the Global Times.

"The national regulation mechanism to stabilize prices will slow the rate of price hikes," Wu said.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, said on Thursday that China will release additional pork into the market for the third time this year to ensure supply and maintain price stability ahead of the upcoming National Day holidays.

The NDRC said that it will closely monitor market supply and demand of live pigs as well as prices, increase releases from the central pork reserve when necessary, and urge all localities to release local reserves simultaneously.

The NDRC suggested that that breeding farms make reasonable arrangements for production, keep up the normal pace of hog breeding, and not blindly stock up on pigs.

The price of pork, a staple meat in the country, weighs heavily on the consumer price index (CPI) and Chinese people's livelihood. 

China's CPI rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in August, slowing from a 2.7 percent rise for the previous month and falling below market expectations, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

"The CPI is expected to rise 3 percent year-on-year in September. Rising pork prices are expected to have a significant pull effect on the CPI data," Wu said.

Global Times