In order to stabilize the price of pigs, raising pigs has become an important political task in China. Recently, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong and other provinces have established a minimum pig production for the year. Each city has been assigned a quantitative target, which is also becoming an important measure for assessing a mayor’s performance.

At the end of September, the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Department of Hunan Province assigned the task for the minimum pig production for 2019 for each of its 14 cities, with a total of 45 million in the province. In addition, Guangdong and Sichuan have also assigned the mayors with the task of raising pigs. Sichuan’s minimum pig production target for this year is 40.08 million, and Guangdong is 34 million.

African swine fever has caused a large number of pigs in China to die or be culled. For the Chinese people, pork accounts for sixty percent of their meat consumption. Continuous pig price increases are becoming a major economic issue. The Chinese government’s solution? Make is a political task by setting a quantitative target.

In August, Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua asked all local governments to guarantee the stable production of pigs. In particular, he called for 70 percent of pig consumption to come from local production. This goal is also included in the mayor’s performance assessment.

Source: Central News Agency, October 3, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201910030264.aspx

According to a Caixin article, the African swine fever hasn’t merely pushed the pork prices in China to a record high. Some Chinese experts have estimated that the direct losses that the African swine fever caused will reach RMB 1 trillion. Experts also said that the impact is “nothing less than what a war would bring.” It has hit the poverty alleviation efforts, an official priority, rather hard. The government is striving to eliminate the impact and has taken steps to encourage a reduction in the consumption of pork.

Caixin published a quote from Li Defa, an Academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is the Dean of the College of Animal Science and Technology at the China Agricultural University and Vice-Chairman of the World Livestock Product Association. At a forum on pigs on September 24, 2019, Li expressed that, based on estimates, the direct loss due to African swine fever is 1 trillion yuan, not considering the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

Li said that half of the pigs in the world are produced in China and African swine fever has taught a lesson to Chinese animal husbandry. “It is impossible to prevent epidemics and diseases. The cost of this loss is too great.”

According to Caixin, in May 2019, Qiu Huaji, the director of the Pig Infectious Diseases Research Office of the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences published a report in the “Shanhe Forum” of the Chinese pig industry on the theory and practice of prevention and control of African swine fever. He said in the report that the impact of African swine fever is wide-ranging. “Although it does not cause human fatalities, the economic losses, the impact on the national economy, the people’s livelihood, and the political, economic, and social impact are nothing less than war.”

In his May 2019 report, Qiu said that some people say that there are 100 million employees in the upstream and downstream of the pig industry, but there are countless families behind these billion people, so the impact is comprehensive. He further said that another important consequence is the impact on “helping the poor and tackling the hardships.” Getting people out of poverty is one of the most important achievements of Xi Jinping, the CCP Secretary.

The Caixin article is no longer available at its website.

Source: RFI, September 25, 2019

http://www.rfi.fr/cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20190925-%E5%AD%A6%E8%80%85-%E9%9D%9E%E6%B4%B2%E7%8C%AA%E7%98%9F%E6%8D%9F%E9%80%BE%E4%B8%87%E4%BA%BF-%E4%BC%A4%E7%97%95%E5%A6%82%E6%88%98%E4%BA%89%E4%B9%9F%E9%87%8D%E5%88%9B%E4%B9%A0%E8%BF%91%E5%B9%B3%E8%84%B1%E8%B4%AB%E6%A2%A6

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that, according to the latest National Bureau of Statistics data, China’s large-scale (officially classified as “Above Designated Size”) industrial companies’ total profit from January to August suffered a year-over-year decline of 1.7 percent. For just the month of August, large-scale industrial companies had a two percent drop in profit, compared to last August. Among these companies, year-over-year, state-held (with controlling stake) companies saw an 8.6 percent profit decline, joint-stock companies had no profit decline or increase, foreign investment based companies suffered a 5.8 percent decline, and privately-owned companies enjoyed a 6.5 percent profit increase. Key industrial segments that saw most of the profit loss are oil, coal, and other fuel processing (-53.1 percent), ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing (-31.3 percent), automobile manufacturing (-19.0 percent), chemical materials and chemical products (-13.1 percent), and textile (-3.4 percent). {Editor’s note: It is very unusual that the National Bureau of Statistics did not release the August profit numbers for state-owned companies this time. Analysts expressed their concerns about a possible unexpected level of profit loss.}

Source: Sina, September 27, 2019
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2019-09-27/doc-iicezzrq8710855.shtml