Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China expects to import more soybeans and pork this year following the novel coronavirus outbreak and African swine fever, which has decimated its pig herds.
Soybean imports are forecast at 92.48 million tonnes this year, rising to 96.62 million tonnes in 2025 and 99.52 million tonnes in 2029, an official from the agriculture ministry told a video conference on the outlook for agriculture released on Monday.
Pork imports this year are seen rising to 2.8 million tonnes, a 32.7% increase from the previous year.
China is a key buyer and consumer of soybeans and pork globally, and typically imports millions of tonnes of soybeans per year to crush for meal to feed its livestock.
The African swine fever outbreak, however, had slashed China’s pig herd by over 40% last year, reducing supplies in the world’s biggest pork consumer.
Combined with the coronavirus outbreak, which hit the transport of pigs and delayed the restart of slaughtering plants, prices of China’s favourite meat rose to record levels in February.
China has been increasing pork imports in recent months to make up for the drop in domestic supply.
Despite the expected surge in imports, China’s 2020 pork consumption is forecast to fall to 42.06 million tonnes, down 5.6% year-on-year, hit by high prices and a fall in consumer demand due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the agriculture ministry.
In line with the slowing consumption, China’s slaughtered pig herd this year will fall 7.8% year-on-year to 501.49 million heads. Pork output this year will also decline to 39.34 million tonnes from 2019, but will rebound to around 54 million tonnes in 2022.
In the longer term, however, pork imports are expected to gradually fall, the ministry forecast, while beef and mutton imports are set to increase in the next decade.
Meanwhile, China’s domestic soybean output is seen at 18.81 million tonnes in 2020, a 3.9% gain from the previous year, while crushing volumes were pegged at 85.98 million tonnes.
Soybean consumption will increase steadily and continue to rely mainly on imports in the next 10 years, said a ministry official.
The ministry also said China’s corn acreage and output are both set to increase in 2020, with production forecast to reach over 260 million tonnes this year, while annual rice output is expected to hold steady above 200 million tonnes per year in the next 10 years.
China is set to release pork supplies from its central reserves as it moves to tackle soaring prices and shortages caused by an outbreak of swine fever.
A state-backed body will auction 10,000 tonnes of frozen pork from its strategic reserves on Thursday.
China, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of pork, has struggled to control the spread of the disease.
In a bid to stabilise prices, a state-backed group that manages the pork reserves will auction imported frozen pork from countries including Denmark, France, the US and UK.
Only 300 tonnes will be sold to each bidder at the auction.
Pork is used widely in Chinese festivals, and the auction comes as the country prepares to celebrate a week-long national holiday for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, said the auction would provide slight relief to the industry but would not do much to contain prices.
“In itself, I don’t think it will be able to prevent pork prices from rising further unless they manage to get the disease under control,” he said.
Beijing created its strategic pork reserve in 2007 but the size of the stockpile is not known.
Capital Economics estimates that at most, the stockpile would hold four days’ worth of pork supplies to feed China.
About 1.2 million pigs have been culled in China in an effort to halt the spread of swine fever since August 2018, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, a UN agency.
In April, Rabobank estimated Chinese pork production would fall by up to 35% this year due to swine fever.
The supply shortage has sent pork prices soaring and has eaten into household incomes.
That poses a fresh challenge for the Chinese economy, which is already facing a slowdown and a trade war between Beijing and Washington.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 