China’s consumer inflation climbed to its highest level in six months in April because of soaring pork prices, with the country increasingly feeling the effects of the African swine fever epidemic.
The South China Morning Post reported that consumer price inflation accelerated to 2.5% in April from a year earlier, its highest level since October, up from2.3% in March,
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), food prices jumped 6.1% in April due to higher pork and fruit prices, as the rise in pork prices accelerated to 14.4% from 5.1% in March.
Since officials began reporting cases of African swine fever in August, the disease has led to the culling of hundreds of thousands of live pigs and breeding stock to stop the spread of the virus that is deadly to pigs but does not affect humans. Experts believe there are far more cases than the 129 outbreaks officially reported in all provinces and autonomous regions of the country.
China has blocked imports from two Canadian pork producers, Olymel and Drummond, since April and pork imports from the US have also been heavily restricted by tariffs of 62% on frozen pork and 70% on fresh pork.
Meanwhile,report from the United Nations has predicted that global meat production is likely to fall for the first time in two decades due to China’s ASF crisis, according to Bloomberg.
The UN said ASF would have far-reaching effects in food and agriculture markets around the world, with farmers producing 0.2% less meat this year.
Read more about the global impact of China’a ASF outbreak here