“Pork is for the Gods”: Can Singapore Solve Hong Kong’s Pig Problem?

South China Morning Post

12 December 2019

When mainland China suspended the transport of all live pigs to Hong Kong following the city’s first confirmed case of African swine fever, frenzied shoppers swamped the city’s wet markets.

They knew that any subsequent shortage would be a big problem because, as one shopper at Mei Foo wet market put it, “any respectable Chinese household needs pork bone to make soup at least twice a week”.

Pork is a staple of the Hong Kong diet, from dumplings to Cantonese soups, and to meet demand the city usually imports about 4,000 live pigs from the mainland every day to complement the 500 or so from local farmers. But since imports from the mainland were first suspended in May, that number has dropped sharply. On December 9, it was just 1,324.

This scarcity has sent prices soaring to HK$159 (US$20.31) per kg (up from HK$75.7 per kg in January), sending many market stalls out of business. Meanwhile, the meat loving population – the average Hongkonger consumes 664g of pork and beef a day, about four times that of the average Briton – is having to cut down on its favourite ingredient.

Hong Kong is now seeking inspiration from neighbouring economies, and in particular Singapore, in how to address the shortage.

… Food security expert Paul Teng from Nanyang Technological University, said in some ways it was odd that Hong Kong was looking to Southeast Asia to ease its pork shortage as the region tended to consume what it produced and had little surplus for exports.

Besides, the region has its own problems with African swine fever. “In Southeast Asia, you’ve two big producers of pork: Vietnam and the Philippines, and both are already heavily infected with African swine fever. So that leaves only Malaysia, and Malaysia so far hasn’t confirmed anything so we don’t know [what the situation is there].”

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