Food prices have hurtled upwards in China as the federal government’s tactics for handling the coronavirus outbreak have caused logistical problems and delays or cancellations in deliveries.
However, prices for seafood products have risen more slowly than most other categories of food. Seafood prices rose 2.8 percent year-on-year in February, whereas prices for pork and poultry meat rose 87.6 percent and 135.2 percent, respectively, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Fresh vegetable prices rose 11 percent over the same time-period last year.
Food price inflation looks less dramatic on a month-over-month basis – pork prices were up 9.3 percent on January, while seafood prices rose three percent.
At a regional level in China, the story was similar. In the populous southwesterly province of Sichuan, overall food prices rose 22.3 percent in February, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But the big driver was pork prices, which rose 132 percent, whereas poultry was up 11.3 percent and seafood prices rose 8.1 percent. Fresh vegetable prices rose 15 percent.
One of the biggest stories of last year in China, but now overlooked by many focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, is the impact of the African swine fever epidemic in China, which decimated the country’s swine herd and forced China to seek imported pig meat. That had already triggered higher prices for pork, and initiated a trend of rising demand for higher-priced foodstuffs in China, partially due to food safety concerns, according to Rabobank.
The consumer price index is a key issue for China’s one-party government, due to its concern about the potential for social unrest triggered by rising food prices. As a result, it has encouraged imports of seafood and other food despite limitations it imposed on trade and travel in response to the coronavirus. But many private airlines and shipping companies have canceled or shrunk their service into China, delaying the supply of higher-valued imports. Ports have started returning to normal service in the past week, but a shortage of migrant workers has led to increased road freight prices, according to a 10 March report on China Central TV’s evening news show.
Government offices have been seeking to manage the news flow and calm consumers worried about food prices. A daily update of food price data for Henan, China’s most populous province, noted on 11 March that prices remained flat for ribbonfish and carp, both staples of the Chinese diet, though the government has not provided the year-on-year figures for those species.
China’s Ministry of Commerce, which monitors prices, issued an update on 11 March stating that nationwide average prices for seafood were flat over the past week.
Both China’s Ministry of Commerce and its Agriculture Ministry put out a joint statement this week suggesting that food wholesale markets in the major cities had returned to “95 percent of normal trading volume” but the key seafood wholesale market in Beijing remains closed to walk-in customers.
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