China is suffering from food and especially pork inflation

by Shaun Richards

The week has opened with an additional focus on China. We have been reminded of the nature of its style of government by the arrest of the pro democracy business tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hing Kong. This adds to the issue of how the economy its doing post the original Covid-19 outbreak. Typically even the inflation data comes with a fair bit of hype and rhetoric.

In July , under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, all regions and departments coordinated the epidemic prevention and control, emergency rescue and disaster relief, and economic and social development work, actively implemented the policy of ensuring supply and stabilizing prices, and the overall market operation was orderly.

Switching now to the actual numbers we are being told this.

From a month-on-month perspective, the CPI went from a decline of 0.1% last month to an increase of 0.6% ………From a year-on-year perspective, CPI rose by 2.7% , an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month .

So out initial picture is that inflation is picking up a little again and that it is not far below the target which is around 3% ( one report said 3.5%). Yet again we see that those who rush to tell us inflation is over look like being wrong yet again.

Pork Prices

This is an important issue in China due to its importance in the diet and the swine flu problem which preceded the Covid-19 outbreak. According to this it has not gone away.

In food, with the gradual recovery of catering services, the demand for pork consumption continues to increase, and floods in many places have a certain impact on the transportation of pigs. The supply is still tight. The price of pork rose by 10.3% , an increase of 6.7 percentage points over the previous month.

The annual numbers further remind us of the issue.

In food, the price of pork increased by 85.7% , an increase of 4.1 percentage points from the previous month

The pig333 website only takes us to the end of July but reports a price of just under 37 Renminbi compared to a bit under 20 this time last year.

I also noted this on the same website and the emphasis is mine.

Senasa (National Service of Agri-Food Health and Quality) officials certified exports of 18,483 tons of pork products and by-products sent between January and June of 2020, representing an improvement of 49% compared to the 12,336 tons sent in the same period in 2019. The main destinations were: China (9,379 tonnes); Hong Kong (2,599 t), Russia (1,845 t), Chile (1,400 t) and Angola (644 t).

So some extra demand for Argentinian farmers which will no doubt be welcome in its difficulties. But Hub Trade China suggests it may be a while before things get better.

#China‘s #pork prices, which jumped in June and edged up in July, will continue to rise in coming months due to seasonal factors and the influence of #COVID19. But tight supplies will begin to ease in the 4th. quarter thanks to boosting hog production and the expansion of imports.

The official view of the Ministry of Agriculture is this.

In the first half of 2020, live pigs and sows have maintained momentum towards recovery. At the end of June, the national sow population of 36.29 million heads changed from negative to positive for the first time year-on-year, up 5.49 million head from the end of last year. The current sow population has recovered to represent 81.2% of the herd at the end of 2017.

We are left wondering what “largely under control” means in reality.

African swine fever has been largely under control, and no major regional animal epidemics occurred in the first half of the year.

I have tried to look at the underlying indices but the England version has not been updated but up until June we have seen them be 170% to 180% of what they were in the previous year.

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Food Overall

In fact the annual rate of inflation is being driven by food prices.

Among them, food prices rose by 13.2% , an increase of 2.1 percentage points, affecting the increase in CPI by about 2.68 percentage points.

A major player in this is of course the pork prices we have just analysed, but it is far from the only player.

the price of fresh vegetables increased by 7.9% , an increase of 3.7 percentage points; the price of aquatic products rose by 4.7% , a decrease of 0.1 percentage point; the price of eggs fell 16.6% , The rate of decline expanded by 0.8 percentage points; the price of fresh fruits fell by 27.7% , and the rate of decline narrowed by 1.3 percentage points.

So if you can get by on eggs and fresh fruit you are okay, otherwise you are not. Although on a monthly basis egg prices rose so that trend mat have turned.

Fuel

I note these because after the excitement around the period when we saw negative prices for some crude oil futures things are rather different now. Brent Crude Oil was essentially above US $40 throughout July. So we see this in the report.

gasoline and diesel prices rose by 2.5% and 2.7% ( monthly)…….

If we switch to the producer prices report we see that the times they are a-changing.

Affected by the continued rebound in international crude oil prices, prices in petroleum-related industries continued to rise. Among them, the prices of petroleum and natural gas extraction industries rose by 12.0% , and the prices of petroleum, coal and other fuel processing industries rose by 3.4% .

So the situation has turned for oil and the overall picture is as follows.

PPI rose by 0.4% , the same rate as last month…….From a year-on-year perspective, PPI fell by 2.4% , and the rate of decline narrowed by 0.6 percentage points from the previous month

Comment

The rise in inflation in China is being reported as good news or rather a reason for a rally in equity markets. But in fact a look at the consumer inflation data shows that food prices have been rising in many areas with the price of pork continuing to surge. So the Chinese consumer and worker will be worse off. Of course central bankers love to ignore this sort of thing as for newer readers basically they define everything that is vital as non-core for inflation purposes. Also inflation calculations assume you substitute products when the price rises to keep the numbers lower, although here they may be correct because poorer Chinese may not be able to afford pork at all now.

On the other side of the coin should China find a way out of the pork problem then inflation would be very low. Well for consumers and workers that would be a good thing because as we stand the chances for wage rises seem slim and I fear the reverse.

Looking at the exchange rate we get regular reports of a collapse on the way but whilst it has joined the rise against the US Dollar it has not done much. At just below 7 versus the US Dollar it is down 1% on the year. Are they running a pegged currency?

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