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The rise in the consumer price index in China last May was by 2.7% in year-to-year terms, this entailing an evident rise with respect to the figure of 1.5% registered in February. The most negative aspect of this piece of news is that the main cause of the rise are the prices of food, that are very politically sensitive in a country where several million people still live on the verge of poverty.
The first culprit of this behaviour of the price of the shopping basket is the price of pork, that rose by 18.2% due to the drop in the supply caused by the decrease in production because of the African swine fever epidemics that affects China since 2018. Pork entails two thirds of the total meat consumed by the Chinese population, and this consumption entails half of the total world consumption. Other products whose prices have grown considerably are fruit (+26.7%) and vegetables (+13.3%).
Thursday, June 20th, 2019/ Foreign News-MAPA/ Spain.
https://www.mapa.gob.es
