Pork prices remain stable in Singapore amid swine fever outbreak in China
Observers and consumers say that they have not seen an increase in pork prices in Singapore.
This photo taken on Aug 10, 2018 shows workers moving pigs out of a pen at a pig farm in Yiyang county, in China's central Henan province. (Photo: AFP/Greg Baker)
SINGAPORE: Pork prices in Singapore remain stable amid concerns about rising global pork prices due to an outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in China.
While observers have not seen an impact on pork prices in Singapore yet, they expect rising Chinese demand to have a spillover effect.
“We already see an increase (in prices) in the US, and it may not end so soon,” said OCBC economist Tommy Xie in a phone interview on Thursday (Apr 18).
“I’m not so sure about pork prices in the region. But if China’s pork prices increase, it may have a spillover effect in the region. It’s a more second-order kind of effect,” he added.
In a statement issued on Friday the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said that the recent spate of ASF had “minimal impact to the overall supply of pork to Singapore”.
“SFA has been continually monitoring development on the outbreak of ASF across the globe and have suspended all import of pork and pork products from areas affected,” said SFA.
SFA added that as part of their diversification efforts, it has made efforts to “increase imports of food from non-traditional sources countries” and “explore new potential source countries for supply of food to Singapore”.
As such, any potential supply disruptions will be mitigated by these arrangements.
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ASF was first discovered in China in August 2018, and has now reportedly spread to every province in the mainland.
Dutch bank and international financial services provider Rabobank estimated that China has culled a total of 200 million pigs, reducing supply in the country.
CNA spoke to consumers in Singapore, who said that they had not observed an increase in pork prices in the recent months.
Ms Justina Lim, 55, said: “There’s no notable change to pork prices, and there’s no talk in our local wet market about it either.”
Similarly, retiree Seah Kok Song did not notice an increase in pork prices.
“Don’t think got price change since we get our pork from Indonesia,” he said.
