China to start fifth 2022 frozen pork buying round on April 22

China will buy another 40,000 mt of frozen pork for its central state reserves in a move to support further plunging prices on April 22, a notice released by China Merchandised Reserve Management Centre said on Tuesday.

The announcement marks the country’s fifth stockpiling batch of this year.

The purchase came shortly after the agency completed its fourth stockpiling round last week, during which 40,000 mt of pork was bought for reserves.

China’s pork prices in the national agricultural wholesales market for agricultural products in the week to April 14 dropped 1% on the week to only CNY 18.21 per kilogramme ($2.85/kg), down 46.9% from a year ago, according to data from the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs (MARA).

China has completed four rounds of frozen pork stockpiling so far this year, with 158,000 mt of meat purchased in total for reserves.

Live hog futures on Dalian Commodity Exchange rebounded strongly on Tuesday, with the most-active contract up 3.4% on the day to CNY 18,030/mt ($2,826/mt) but remained significantly lower than last year's highest recorded level of CNY 29,380/mt ($4,605/mt).