Xinhua Silk Road: Price indices on Qinghai yak and Tibetan sheep unveiled to enhance local animal husbandry branding

BEIJING, June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 23, two indices gauging prices of yak and Tibetan sheep in northwest China's Qinghai Province were released to the public to strengthen branding and discourse power of local animal husbandry sector.

The indices, named Xinhua • Qinghai Yak Price Index and Xinhua • Qinghai Tibetan Sheep Price Index, were jointly released by Qinghai Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Qinghai Branch of Xinhua News Agency and China Economic Information Service (CEIS).

Dubbed the "world's capital of yaks" and the "hometown of Tibetan sheep in China," Qinghai is home to about 34 percent of the world's total yak population and over 40 percent of China's total Tibetan sheep stock.

Currently, Qinghai's yak and Tibetan sheep sectors are in dire need of efficient, transparent pricing mechanisms to better bridge production and sales and improve the sectors' discourse and price-deciding powers, noted Gu Changwei, head of Qinghai Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Tracking market supply, demand and sector trends in real time, the indices can guide local farmers to schedule their slaughtering pace, stabilize market expectations, and leverage digital and standardized achievements to tell the story of the industry, highlighted Gu.

As a pragmatic means to facilitate digital transformation, the indices are expected to unlock the value of data to benefit high-quality development of Qinghai's animal husbandry sector, stressed Sun Aidong, head of Qinghai Branch of Xinhua News Agency.

Including sub-indices for live animals and carcasses, the indicators with base periods set on February 27, 2024 and base points at 1,000 points reveal that by mid-June 2026, Qinghai's closely interrelated yak and Tibetan sheep prices have gone out of a trough and entered a new round of upward trend.

Despite this, shocks from imported frozen meat and insufficient consumer awareness of the value of green plateau food led to poor transmission of prices across the industrial chain and necessitated branding to bolster high-quality development of Qinghai's yak and Tibetan sheep sectors.

Leveraging the expertise and data of "Xinhua Indices" platform, CEIS is striving to inject new impetus into building Qinghai's green and organic farm produce and livestock product base by developing a price index regime for local characteristic products, said Yang Mu, vice president of CEIS.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/351088.html

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