Chart of the Day
While Dalian corn futures have moved higher in recent months, cash prices have remained mostly stable since January. This chart can be found on the Sitonia Consulting data portal.
Large hog producer highlights ASF concerns, hog price rebounds
In recent communication with investors, New Hope said some operations in northern parts of the country faced challenges with African swine fever over the winter, however the situation is improving.
The last officially reported case of ASF was in Inner Mongolia on April 29, 2021.
The company also estimated their cost of production at 17 yuan/kg. The current national average price is 13.25 yuan/kg.
Despite deeply negative margins, some markets are seeing a notable increase in piglet prices, with some areas of Sichuan reporting price increase around 30-40% as farmers bet on an uptick in prices by the end of the year.
March shipment volume dips, passenger travelling slumps
Transportation statistics for March show a mixed picture within China as freight traffic dipped slightly but passenger traffic plunged sharply.
Road freight traffic was 3.1 billion tons, down 4.4% y/y. Port volumes were down 1.3 billion tons, down 0.31% y/y. For foreign trade this fell to 372 million tons, down 6.1% y/y. Container volumes rose by 1.4% to 23.8 million TEU.
Although movement of goods and cargo only edged slightly lower, movement of people dropped precipitously.
Road traffic passenger volumes dropped 32% y/y to 297.6 million passengers.
As a comparison, this volume of road passenger traffic is only 2.6% higher than March 2020 during the initial Covid outbreak.
Intracity traffic volume including metros, buses, and taxis also declined sharply during the month, down almost 27% y/y.