Price summary

However, prices moved lower in a few regions as the week drew to a close.

Market analysis

During the week in review, China's live hog market was characterised by the following:

• Live hog prices were generally higher earlier in the week. Due to tight supplies, hog traders in southern regions were unable to procure sufficient inventories, and procurement costs for hogs destined for Hong Kong and Macau had increased. Hog traders were somewhat reluctant to procure from backyard farms, which were unable to adequately satisfy their demand for large numbers of hogs. On the other hand, big-scale farmers in the south took the lead in raising their hog prices amid active procurements by local hog traders.
  
  

• Hog prices in the south rose by a relatively bigger extent during the early part of the week, widening the difference in hog prices between northern and southern regions. Additionally, authorities in various provinces have gradually eased restrictions on hogs entering their respective regions. Hence, hog traders had seized the opportunity to make active procurements of relatively low-priced hogs in the north. But with the epidemic situation in the north worsening of late, hog prices in some areas there moved lower later in the week. Consequently, the arrival of more competitively priced hogs from the north into southern regions has weighed on hog prices in the south, driving prices lower in several areas in the south as well towards the close of the week.
  
  

• Some 300 people in Shanghai were reportedly hit by clenbuterol poisoning recently, dampening pork demand there amid heightened concerns among local residents. Authorities have also blacklisted and banned some major hog production regions in the north with discovered cases of clenbuterol from making cross province deliveries. This consequently weighed on pork demand nationwide, and has led to some fluctuations in hog prices across the country.

Market forecast

Live hog prices in China have stayed at relatively high levels in the approach to China's National Day holiday and Mid-Autumn Festival in October, with a continued increase in the number of live hogs released into the market of late.

Should northern China's epidemic situation be brought under effective control soon, and the negative impact of the clenbuterol incidents on pork demand lessen in the near term, hog prices in China might register further gains in the week ahead.

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