The majority of Central European quotations is performing a lateral movement. Spain, France and Great Britain are reporting slight price increases. Throughout Europe, the mood proves to be positive. It's a disappointing fact from the producers' point of view that the quotations in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark remain unchanged. There, further price increases are urgently needed but cannot be realised with regard to cost-covering production. In Southern Europe, the quantities of live pigs on offer turn out to be relatively small at the moment.

At present, a 28.3 cents' gap is quoted between the leading German quotation (a corrected EUR 1.366 per kg slaughter weight) and the Spanish price (EUR 1.649 per kg slaughter weight). The distance between the Spanish and Dutch quotations is even larger. The Netherlands continue to rank last among the five EU member countries richest in pigs, a fact that certainly must be attributed to the increased pig stocks. In the Netherlands, about 100 000 more pigs were counted in December than were the year before. According to the latest LRF prognosis, about 20 per cent of the pig keeping farms in Sweden are expected to quit pig production until the end of the year. The high production costs and, above all, the strict animal welfare standards are said to be the reasons for this. Meanwhile, Russia lifted the restrictions they had imposed on German poultry. It is expected that the requirements related to imports of German pork will be lifted from the end of March.

Trend for Germany: The quantities of live pigs on offer are sufficient to cover the demand on the part of the slaughter companies. Thus, the prices are expected to remain unchanged. Even if there is no more room left for further price increases on short notice, exports will be able to give the necessary impetus over the next few weeks. The German export market might well be pushed by the fact that South Korea increased the quote for duty-free pork.

Explanation
¹corrected quotation: The official Quotations of the different countries are corrected, so that each quotation has the same base (conditions).
base: 56 per cent lean meat; farm-gate-price; 79 per cent killing out percentage, without value-added-tax (VAT)