It looks as if there were no leeway upwards. The EU member countries mostly quote unchanged prices. Among them is Germany, usually setting the pace, as well as is Spain, France or Denmark. The devaluation of Eastern European currencies has lead to losses in the export business, currently impeding prices to increase.

Demand is expected to improve in a medium-term perspective, with about 3 million less pigs now being held in Poland than were a year ago and with Russia having suspended pork imports from nine US producers.

In Belgium and Austria, last week’s optimism could not be maintained; the price increases have been cancelled completely. In the Netherlands, too, the price went down as a result of weak demand on the part of the slaughter companies.

A pleasant development is reported on from Great Britain alone. There, a long-term acceleration in demand is hoped for, making the price go up by a corrected 8 cents.

Trend: It is most probable that sufficient quantities of pigs mature for slaughter will be on offer throughout Europe next week. However, a little patience seems to be needed with regard to the yearned-for price increase.

Explanation
¹corrected quotation: The official Quotations of the different countries are corrected, so that each quotation has the same base (conditions).
base: 56 per cent lean-meat-percentage; farm-gate-price; 79 per cent killing-out-percentage, without value-added-tax (VAT)