Demand for dairy products keeps increasing as Chinese economy develops and people's lifestyle changes.
In 2013 there were more than 600 dairy producers in China. The revenue of main business was approximately CNY 280 billion, up by 14% YOY. The output volume of dairy products was 26.98 million tons, up by 6% YOY. Sales of the product also went up in recent years while the finished goods inventory fell drastically. By the end of December, total value of the finished goods inventory in the whole industry was CNY 6.38 billion, down by 7.47% YOY. It equals to the value of 610 thousand tons of products, which takes only 2.3% of the total output volume. It is indicated that the product is very popular in the market.
Although dairy industry in China performed well in production and selling in 2013, economic benefit did not grow at the same pace. Total profit and tax of the industry increased by 5.83% YOY while total profit only increased by 3.76% YOY. The reason is that profit brought by increase of sales revenue is offset by increase of raw material cost. China is now one of the countries with high milk price. The Ministry of Agriculture monitors the average price of raw milk in ten major milk producing areas such as Inner Mongolia and Hebei. In November 2013 the average price of raw milk was 4.03 CNY/kg while that in January 2014 was 4.26 CNY/kg, up by 24.9% YOY. In November 2013, the weighted average price of milk in 28 countries in EU was 39.98 EUR/100kg, which was 3.35 CNY/kg by the exchange rate in the month. The weighted average price of milk in Germany, France, England, Holland and Poland was 39.75 EUR/100kg, which was 3.33 CNY/kg.