中国乳制品月报

Growth in China’s dairy market continues, and even today I have been reviewing segmentation trends in one local dairy category which show a clear trend towards premium products over several years. However China’s economy has been a concern for many observers so far in 2014, with export figures down and international commodity prices normally dependent on the country’s demand showing declines which seem to tell a story. Yet officially the country expects 7.5% GDP growth this year, and the People’s Daily notes that if the average annual growth rate reaches 6.7% over the period from 2014 to 2020, this will produce a doubling of GDP in comparison with 2010.

Likewise, China’s truly enormous credit boom fuelled by a shadow banking “system” has led many to speculate that a crash is coming. Yet this week a state-run newspaper suggests that the central bank may lower lenders’ reserve requirement ratios “by a small margin,” allowing them to set aside less cash for reserves and so ease their liquidity pressures – this would be the first such cut since the May 2012 reduction from 20.5% to 20%.

And meanwhile the dairy industry in China and abroad speculates on the precise meaning of some of the recent regulatory changes – in theory at least – designed to clarify what’s acceptable in China’s dairy manufacturing. So far, so confusing! But perhaps that’s how it should be in a week which has seen the publicity around the discovery of the world’s oldest cheese in northwest China, dating to the period 1980-1450 BC – in a country in which cheese has recently become a novelty!