According to monitoring by MOFCOM, price of major farm produce in 36 medium and large sized cities drop mostly last week (February 18- 24) compared with that of the previous week, and the price of material for production saw a slight rise.

The average wholesale prices of 18 vegetables dropped 7% as compared with that of the previous week driven by warm weather and increasing supply of vegetables in various regions. Top price drops are of vegetables including cucumber, lettuce and rape down by 17.5%, 15.5% and 15% respectively. Prices of meat dropped mostly and the wholesale price of pork was down by 3% as compared with that of previous week, lamb and beef dropped 1.3% and 1% respectively over previous week. Retail price of chicken was down by 0.2% as compared with that of previous week. The average retail prices of 8 aquatic products dropped 0.9% as compared with that of previous week. Top price drops are big cutlass fish, carp and small cutlass fish down by 1.8%, 1.4% and 1.3% respectively. Retail price of eggs fell 0.6% as compared with that of the previous week. Retail prices of edible oil dropped mainly, of which peanut oil and soybean oil saw a decrease of 0.4% and 0.2%, while rapeseed oil was up by 0.3%. Retail prices of grains fluctuated slightly, of which small package of rice dropped 0.2% over the previous week while small package of wheat flour saw an increase of 0.2%.

Of major material for production, the prices of mineral products, energy resources, steel, chemical products, materials for agricultural production and building materials rose; materials for light industry remained unchanged; rubber and non-ferrous metal dropped slightly. The price of mineral products rose 2.3%, of which iron ore and zinc ore were up by 2.7% and 1.2% respectively, tin ore and antimony ore remained unchanged while copper ore dropped 1.2%. The price of energy resources rose 0.2%, of which crude oil was up by 0.5% while raw coal and coke remained unchanged. The price of steel rose 0.2%, of which steel ofΦ12mm, galvanized sheet of 1mm, 8 # channel were up by 0.6%, 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. The price of chemical products rose 0.2%, of which styrene, methanol, and phthalic anhydride were up by 1%, 0.7% and 0.3% respectively. Price of materials for agricultural production rose 0.2%, of which urea was up by 0.4%, with an increase of 3.2% as compared with that in January. The price of rubber dropped 0.5%. Owing to the decline in purchases of the tire industry and sufficient market supply, domestic standard rubber #1 and imported RSS#3 were down by 2.4% and 2.2%. The price of non-ferrous dropped 1.9%, of which nickel#1, copper#1, aluminum A00, tin#1 and lead#1 dropped 8%, 2.8%,2.4%, 1.5% and 0.2% respectively, while zinc#1 remained unchanged.

MOFCOM