I still remember that a few months ago, Freedom of Cherry caused a wide discussion. Today, "Apple Freedom" has once again entered the public eye. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the wholesale price of Fuji apples was 10.35 yuan/kg on May 7, compared with 7.93 yuan/kg in mid-March, and the price has increased by about 30% in just two months. In fact, the price increase of Fuji Apple has reached 39% this year, which is more than 60% compared with the same period last year.
In fact, Apple's price increase is not a case. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the price of most fruits has risen sharply this year.
Specifically, cantaloupe, fragrant pear and watermelon have increased greatly this year. Since the beginning of this year, the increase of Hami melon has been the most amazing, reaching 124.6%, while the increase of fragrant pear and watermelon has reached 37.8% and 30.0% respectively. In the last four weeks, in addition to the price of apples, the prices of cantaloupe and fragrant pear have also jumped. By May 17, the average wholesale price of cantaloupe was 8.94 yuan/kg, up nearly 46% from last month, while the current average wholesale price of fragrant pear was 12. 10 yuan/kg, up more than 20% in recent January.
The increase in fruit prices also pushed the CPI of fresh fruit up year-on-year.
It is precisely because of the overall increase in fruit prices that the CPI of fresh fruit rose sharply to 1 1.9% in April of 20 19, which was 4.2 percentage points higher than that in March and 6 percentage points higher than that in June. Considering that the weight of fruit price breakdown in CPI is about 1.8%, in April, the fruit CPI breakdown boosted CPI by 0.22 percentage points.
In addition to spot prices, the prices of apples and red dates in the futures market are also rising.
Driven by the rise in spot prices, Apple futures prices have also shown a steady upward trend this year. On May 20th, the settlement price of apple futures was 14464 yuan/ton, up 28.6% from the beginning of the year. Especially since May, the price of Apple futures has accelerated, with a cumulative increase of 16.2% in 20 days. Jujube futures were listed for the first time on April 30th. At present, the settlement price of jujube futures is 9775 yuan/ton, up 10.7% compared with the first transaction of 8830 yuan/ton.
Why has the price of fruit risen sharply recently? How will fruit prices affect future inflation? Let's analyze these problems one by one.
2. Why does the price of fruit increase?
First of all, there are certain seasonal factors in the rise of fruit prices. The traditional season of mass production of fruits is summer and autumn, and May is just the time when the supply of fruits is green and yellow. Most of the fruits currently sold belong to the stock fruits last autumn, but a new batch of fruits has not been mass-produced. At the same time, after the temperature turned warmer in May, people's demand for fruits began to increase. On the one hand, the supply is decreasing, on the other hand, the demand is increasing, so the price of fruit tends to rise in May.
However, the price increase this year is too high, far exceeding the seasonality, and there are other price increase factors. Although fruit prices often rose in May, since May this year, the average wholesale prices of seven kinds of fruits monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs have increased by 14.7%, far exceeding the historical level in the same period. In other words, there are other super-seasonal factors in the price increase of fruits this year.
Consumption has become healthier and fruit sales have continued to grow. Commodity prices depend on the relationship between supply and demand, and fruits are no exception. On the demand side, with the improvement of people's living standards, residents' consumption structure of food tends to be healthy, mainly increasing the consumption of poultry, fruits, eggs and aquatic products, while reducing the consumption of grain and edible oil. During the period of 20 13-20 17, the per capita consumption of dried fruits and vegetables in China increased by more than 23%, much higher than the average increase of food consumption.
The rising demand for fruit supports the price of fruit, but it is not the main reason for the recent price increase. Although China residents' consumption of fruits continues to increase, the consumption of fruits is related to consumption habits and population, and these factors will not change much in the short term. Therefore, the steady growth of fruit consumption supports the price of fruit, but the demand side is not the main reason for the short-term sharp rise of fruit.
Because the demand side is relatively stable, this year's fruit price increase is more due to the short-term sharp decline in supply, and the decline in supply is inseparable from the weather conditions last year.
Take apples for example. The main producing areas of apples in China are Shaanxi, Shandong and Shanxi. In 20 17, the output of apples in Shaanxi, Shandong and Shanxi reached10.92 million tons, 9.39 million tons and 4.44 million tons respectively, accounting for 26%, 23% and 1 1% of the national output respectively. Last year, the weather conditions in these areas were bad in spring and the low temperature lasted for a long time. At the same time, there is a strong wind during the flowering period of apples, which causes a large number of flowers to fall without pollination. Bad weather led to a sharp drop in apple production in Shaanxi, Shandong and Gansu, the main apple producing areas, last autumn.
The sharp drop in apple production last year led to a sharp drop in inventory this year.
At present, the inventory of apples in the main producing areas has obviously decreased compared with the historical level. The storage capacity ratio of apples in Shaanxi Province has dropped to 8% on April 25th, far lower than 23.5% in the same period of 20 18. On April 25th, the storage capacity ratio of apples in Shandong was 24. 1%, which was 3.7 percentage points lower than the same period of last year.
Apple's unique sales model determines that inventory is a potential supply in spring.
Although apples can be bought all year round in China, they mainly mature around August and September, so apple sales are actually divided into two modes: direct sales after planting trees and sales in the following year after storage. Apples that have not been put into storage will be sold out in the year when the apples are mature, but the apples sold in the next spring are all in stock, so the apples in stock now actually determine the supply of apples now. Therefore, due to the bad weather last year, the output of apples fell sharply, which led to a decline in the size of apples available for sale this year. In the case that the supply is less than the demand, it is not difficult to understand that the price of apples has risen.
In addition to apples, last year's late spring cold also affected the output of other fruits.
As mentioned above, in addition to the sharp rise in the price of apples, the price of fragrant pears has also risen sharply this year, especially in the past four weeks, with a cumulative increase of 20%. Shijiazhuang and Korla in Xinjiang are the main pear producing areas in China. During the pear blossom period last spring, both Shijiazhuang and Korla in Xinjiang suffered from cold current. In April 18, the minimum temperature dropped to 3℃ and 0℃ respectively. The drop in temperature seriously affected the flowering and fruiting of pear trees, which led to a sharp drop in the output of fragrant pears last year and affected the supply this year.
Therefore, in addition to the decline in supply caused by bad weather, the supply of imported fruits in China has also declined, but the impact is relatively limited.
3. How does rising prices affect inflation?
On May 20, the average wholesale price of fruits monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has risen to 7.78 yuan/kg, the highest value since June 20 14. However, at the present time, we think that there is little room for further price increase of fruits in the future, and it may gradually fall back at the end of May or June.
The previous analysis has shown that the recent increase in fruit prices is mainly due to the shortage of supply, while the main reason for the decrease in supply is that the bad weather last year led to a decline in output, which affected the supply of fruit this year. Considering the periodicity of fruit growth, a large number of fresh fruits will be listed after June, including watermelons, grapes, peaches and mangoes. Because there is a strong substitution between fruits, the large supply of these fruits will depress the prices of other fruits because of the short-term imbalance between supply and demand. Of course, the output of some fruits may be reduced due to the extreme weather at the beginning of this year, and rigid demand may also maintain the price of specific fruits in a short time. However, due to the increase in the supply of fresh fruit, we believe that the overall price trend of fruit should stabilize in the future, or even fall seasonally.
Although the price of fruit may fall, the impact of fruit on CPI cannot be ignored. Since the current fruit price has risen to an all-time high since 14, even if the fruit price falls, it is expected that the year-on-year growth rate of fruit price will not be low in the coming months. In fact, the current situation is similar to that in 20 14. In June, the price of fruit soared to 7.9 1 yuan/kg, but in May-August, the CPI of fresh fruit remained at around 20%, driving the CPI of food to exceed 1.5 percentage points. Considering that the CPI of fresh fruit has increased to 1 1.9% year-on-year, the price of fruit will have a higher pulling effect on food CPI in the future.
At present, the price of pork is stable, and the price of vegetables falls seasonally. Food prices are mainly affected by the prices of meat, vegetables and fruits. As mentioned earlier, this year's fruit price will show a super-seasonal performance. Let's take a look at the price of pigs and vegetables respectively. Affected by African swine fever this year, the price of live pigs began to rise seasonally in March. Although the pork price tends to be stable at present, considering the continuous decline in the number of live pigs and sows, there is still room for pork prices to rise in the future. At the same time, vegetable prices have dropped significantly, but as the current decline is equivalent to the same period last year, vegetable prices may still remain at a high level.
Considering the super-seasonal performance of pig price and fruit price, food CPI will remain high this year. As mentioned above, pork prices have stabilized at present, but pork prices have fallen for most of the time in the same period in history, so pork still shows super-seasonal performance at present. At the same time, it belongs to the seasonal rising stage of fruit at present, but recently, due to the contraction of supply, the price of fruit also has anti-seasonal performance. Therefore, the over-seasonal increase of two factors has also led to the month-on-month decline of food CPI has been weaker than the historical average in the same period since March, and these two factors will continue in the future, or will lead to food CPI above 6% this year.
Although we believe that the CPI of food will remain at a high level this year, the increase in both pig prices and fruit prices is actually due to the contraction of the supply side rather than the expansion of the demand side, which means that there is not much room for other food prices to rise. Historically, high inflation often requires a substantial increase in the rate of money growth. However, in April this year, the growth rate of M2 was only 8.5% year-on-year, which means that there is no currency surplus this year. Considering the large increase of non-food CPI in the second half of last year, there may be some downward pressure on non-food CPI in the future to hedge the increase of food CPI. Overall, we expect CPI to remain in a moderate range of 2-3% this year.
Has the price of your fruit increased?