Beef and Pork Prices to Rise

MANILA - It's bad enough that Philippine consumers are already struggling to keep up with rice and fuel prices, but now they also need to pay more for pork and beef.
calendar icon 2 June 2008
clock icon 1 minute read

According to The Straits Times, beef and pork prices have already doubled this year and with rising oil prices, increasing freight costs and a weakening peso, are set to rise again, an importers group told The Manila Times newspaper on Saturday.

Mr Jun Lim, vice-president of the Cold Chain Association of the Philippines, told the paper 90 per cent of the country's beef supply is imported, mostly from Brazil.

The price of imported beef in January was US$2.65 (S$3,61) a kilo, and in May it was US$4.50 a kilo. Pork was US$1.90 a kilo in January and US$2.50 in May, the paper said.

'For now, the price of chicken is stable, because most of the supply is produced locally,' Mr Lim told the paper.

'The reasons why the effect is not yet felt immediately, a lot of what is being sold in the market today are meats that came in two to three months ago and were in storage,' he said. 'But once those stocks are depleted, price increases will hit the consumers.'

On Friday, the government said it is to give the poor subsidies worth up to 93.6 billion pesos (about S$2.9 billion) to help them with the rising prices.

View the Straits Times story by clicking here.

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