According to monitoring by MOFCOM, price of major farm produce in 36 medium and large sized cities fell further last week (February 25- March 3) 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 fell further and were down by 8.1% 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 celery, cabbage and green pepper down by 16.8%, 14.5% and 12.5% respectively. Average prices of 8 aquatic products dropped 0.7% as compared with that of previous week. Top price drops are small yellow croaker, chub and big cutlass fish, down by 2%, 1.4% and 1.2%. Retail price of eggs was down by 0.4% as compared with that of previous week and kept falling consecutively for two weeks with an accumulative decrease of 0.9%. Retail prices of eggs in Hangzhou, Qingdao and Fuzhou dropped 2.4%, 2.3% and 1.3% respectively. Prices of meat saw ups and downs. Wholesale price of pork dropped 1.7% as compared with that of previous week, and the prices of pork in Chengdu, Shanghai and Nanjing fell 7.1%, 4.8% and 4.4% respectively; while wholesale prices of beef and lamb rose 0.4% and 0.3%, retail price of chicken rose 0.1% as compared with that of previous week. Retail prices of grain and oil fluctuated slightly, of which small package of rice and small package of wheat flour rose 0.2% and 0.2% over the previous week, peanut oil and rapeseed oil were both up by 0.1%, while soybean oil dropped 0.1% as compared with that of the previous week.

Of major material for production, the prices of materials for agricultural production, energy resources, chemical products and materials for light industry rose, while those of building materials, steel, chemical products and rubber dropped. The price of energy resources rose 0.7%, of which refined oil, diesel oil and gasoline rose 2.8%, 3.6% and 3.3% respectively, coke remained unchanged while raw coal dropped 0.1%. Price of chemical products rose 0.4%, of which styrene and sulfuric acid were both rose 0.9%, while polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene remained unchanged. Price of material for light industry rose 0.1%, and cotton was up by 0.1%. Price of non-ferrous metal dropped 0.2%, of which tin#1, aluminum A00 and lead#1 were down by 1.1%, 0.6% and 0.2% respectively, zinc#1 remained unchanged, while that of nickel#1 rose 0.3%. Prices of steel dropped 0.4%, of which ordinary plate of 10mm, ordinary hot-rolled sheet of 3mm, and rebar ofΦ12mm were down by 0.6%, 0.6% and 0.5%. Prices of mineral products dropped 0.8%, of which copper ore and iron ore were down by 1.2% and 0.9%. Prices of rubber dropped 1.1%, of which domestic standard rubber, imported RSS#3 saw a decrease of 2.4% and 2.1%, while NBR remained unchanged.