This is a transcript of top stories presented by China's CCTV Business Channel as produced by CNBC Asia Pacific.
Hello, I'm Saijal Patel from CNBC and you're watching “Asia Market Daily”.
Prices of agricultural commodities, like wheat, corn and soybeans have risen about 20 percent from the start of the year and that's starting to translate into higher prices at the checkouts.
According to a recent report by the UN, the world is "dangerously close" to a second serious food crisis in less than 3 years - as demand outweighs supply.
(SOT) Brady Sidwell, Head of Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory, North East Asia, Rabobank:
“We've seen a lot of the fundamentals as well La Nina for instance is taking over that's kind of the weather aspect of Brazil and the Summer plantings down there of soybeans but as you know a lot of it is really been demand and we've seen China, China's really the wild card now in all commodity markets, not only in soft, but also in hard.”
Brady Sidwell of Rabobank says the problem has become "even more acute", with consumers in China now spending about a third of their income on food.
(SOT) Brady Sidwell, Head of Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory, North East Asia, Rabobank:
“The key really I think at the moment is the whole world is looking at China to see if they're going to continue buying, and I think the Government really is building up its inventories and that's one of the ways they can help control inflation is by buying in inventories, keeping those inventories and then also releasing them to the market as we've seen lately.”
Dominique Dwor-Frecaut, Macro Strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland:
“I would rate those plans very highly, just like I am rating the UK plan very highly. But despite their best efforts, the economies are shrinking, the world economy is slowing, which is why we are having QE2 in the first place and previous experience in doing fiscal consolidation when the economy is slowing or shrinking is frankly not very positive, this is going to be a very big challenge.”
That's the latest “Asia Market Daily”.
I'm Saijal Patel from CNBC.
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