Supplier has enjoyed 16 years at the trough
The city's leading supplier of meat, Ng Fung Hong, has been the sole importer of fresh pork from the mainland since 1988.
More than half the pork consumed in Hong Kong is from freshly slaughtered mainland and locally farmed pigs.
A part of mainland conglomerate China Resources, the company has been operating for 50 years and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 1995. Its domination of the fresh pork market dates to the 1980s, when its low prices knocked out competitors importing meat from Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.
Though there are no government restrictions on the origin of live-pig imports, Ng Fung Hong has become the sole supplier by virtue of being named the only agent for mainland pork imports by the Ministry of Commerce.
Ng Fung Hong buys pigs from farmers in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces and elsewhere.
Forty-nine per cent of the pork eaten in Hong Kong is chilled or frozen. Most of this meat is imported from Thailand, Australia, the United States, Brazil, Denmark and the mainland.
