CHINA, the world's largest pork consumer, will seek to control surging prices by supplying more poultry, beef and eggs and by tightening corn exports, the country's top planning agency said.
Pork, a staple used in dumpling fillings, will remain in shortage "for a fairly long time," the National Development and Reform Commission said yesterday.
A 75 percent jump in pork prices has helped push inflation to a 27-month high and may undermine social stability, said Bloomberg News.
Shortages may force China to boost imports, even as it halts some meat shipments from the United States in an escalating dispute over food quality and safety.
"The government may issue quotas to allow more pork and poultry to be imported," Wei Dong, an analyst at brokerage FCStone Group Inc, said in Beijing. "It'll take time because China will have to first sort out the issues on the quality inspections of imported meat."
The price of pork surged 74.6 percent in June from a year earlier after an outbreak of fatal Blue Ear disease in pigs, the planning agency said.
"China consumes about four million tons of pork a month, so the quantity of imports will have to be pretty big to make any impact on the supply shortage," said Guo Huiyong, livestock analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd.
China will "strictly control" processing and exports of corn, the main feed of pigs, the planning agency said. New corn-processing projects and expansion of existing projects should be stopped, it said.