Since the beginning of this century, the price of “cold fever” in the pork market in China has continued to break out. After three rounds of major fluctuations in 2004, 2008, and 2011, the price of pork surged again in the near future, rising nearly 30% in four months to a new high of three years. According to historical experience, the correlation between pork price and consumer price index (CPI) is strong. If the rapid rise in pig prices brings animals prices higher than expected, monetary policy may even be forced to turn. Institutional analysis believes that higher pig prices may constrain the monetary policy space in the second half to a certain extent. The frequency of interest rate cuts and RRR cuts is likely to be lower than that in the first half of the year. However, at least during the year, monetary policy will remain unchanged.

Storm-rising pig prices reproduce "cold fever"

The rising trend of pig prices continues. According to the latest data from the Department of Market and Economic Information of the Ministry of Agriculture, the current average price of pork in the national agricultural wholesale market is about 22 yuan/kg to 23 yuan/kg, which is close to 30% from the 18th level at the beginning of March, setting a new high for three years. . In fact, this is the fourth consecutive monthly increase in pork prices. After a 1.5% drop in February from February, pork prices rose by 2%, 8.3%, 5.3%, and 7% respectively from March to June.

The monitoring data also showed that pig prices have been accelerating at an accelerating pace since the end of June. Compared with mid-April, the average national price of pigs' hips and pork in the mid-July rose by over 17%, and by region, it exceeded 90%. The price of pork in districts and cities rose, among which prices in Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Shandong topped the list, ranging from 39.7% to 48.1%.

Regarding the reason for the rising pig price, Jiang Nan, deputy director of the Macroeconomic Research Office of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that the current rise in domestic pork prices is mainly caused by the continuous decline in the supply of pigs in the previous period. Liu Xuezhi, a research fellow at the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center, also stated that pork prices have continued to decline in the past two years, leading to losses in pig breeding. The number of live pigs and fertile sows has continued to fall to the lowest level since records were recorded. This is the current rebound in pork prices. main reason.

According to statistics, the number of live pigs and the number of fertile sows kept declining in the past few months, of which, at the end of March, there were only over 40 million remaining domestic sows, which fell below the 48 million warning lines set by the Ministry of Agriculture. The 4000-monitoring live pigs information recently released by the Ministry of Agriculture also showed that the number of live pigs in May decreased by 9.8% year-on-year, and the number of fertile sows decreased by 15.5% year-on-year.

In this regard, the industry is generally concerned that this is the signal of the new round of “pigs cycle”. According to data from Huatai Securities Research Institute, the peak price of the last round of pork was in 2011, followed by a continuous decline in the following three years, and many farmers were eliminated. Sun Lijian, a professor at the School of Economics at Fudan University, said that farmers are extremely sensitive to the price of pigs. When the prices are high, they are farmed more. When the prices are low, they are kept abreast. However, the relationship between supply and demand may lag behind the terminal price, and it also shows that the price is too high. Low round of pig cycles.

Changes in prices can easily induce "chasing and selling," and "cold fever" in pig prices has become a major shadow in the industry. As a result, soaring pork prices have been soaring and the sales side has been seriously affected. The “Economic Information Daily” reporter recently interviewed several merchants at the pork hall in Beijing's Xinfadi Market. He learned that the pork market, especially the retail market, has been hit a lot in the past month, and the slow-moving phenomenon is very serious. Many merchants are currently unable to sell. All are zero profit operations.

Zhu Zhenxin, a macro researcher at Minsheng Securities, said that supply of live pigs will continue to be tight during the year, and pig prices may show upward trend in the second half of the year. Rising pig prices will bring some pressure on CPI. A breakthrough of 2% during the year is a high-probability event. However, from the perspective of recent high-frequency data and PMI preview values, the total economic demand is still not strong, and CPI touches the “upper limit” during the year. "The possibility is less. From a policy perspective, this means that while monetary policy is temporarily silent, it seems premature to talk about austerity. Steady growth is still the main task of the central government for a long time to come. Even if the monetary policy is weakened, policies such as finance and foreign trade will not stand idly by.