Beijing releases reserve pork
Since the Lunar New Year at the end of January, Beijing’s pork prices have been rising as a result of tight supply. Raw pork prices surged by 50.6% month on month in April, according to the region’s municipal government.
The move, which will last until 4 July, sees 50,000kg of pork sold for a small sum to 121 supermarkets daily. Subsidies of up to CNY9, or US$1.40 per kilo, will be provided by the government to pork sold, to help encourage vendors to decrease prices.
Slaughterhouses are also being encouraged by the government to increase pork supply through subsidies.
According to Xinhua, this is the first time the Beijing government has allocated reserve pork to an initiative that was launched in 1992, designed to create reserve programmes to stabilise prices of major goods.
