China reports sufficient vegetable supplies but higher prices

BEIJING - China's vegetable supplies were generally sufficient despite an uptick in prices, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

China currently has more than 84 million mu (5.6 million hectares) of vegetables grown in the fields. Data from the ministry's 1,000 vegetable monitoring centers showed that supplies increased 2.7 percent year-on-year in the recent two months.

However, there has been an uptick in prices as the Spring Festival holiday and the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic pushed up logistics costs and caused people to stock up on vegetables.

The average wholesale price of 28 types of vegetables monitored by the ministry surged 23.7 percent year-on-year in January. The increase in vegetable prices pushed the country's consumer price index up 0.45 percentage points, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

The ministry vowed greater efforts to ensure vegetable supplies especially in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and other hard-hit areas, as well as get farmers fully prepared for the spring plowing season to lay a solid foundation for the year's harvest.