Industry News – The online home of POULTRY and meatingplace magazines
By Rita Jane Gabbett on 3/19/2010
The United States and China have reached an agreement to reopen the Chinese market to U.S. pork and pork products, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced Thursday night.
“I am pleased that China affirmed in our meetings that they will base their decisions on international science-based guidelines,” said Kirk in a joint USDA/USTR statement. “We look forward to working cooperatively to resolve additional issues, including a resumption of trade in beef.”
Pork trade will resume immediately once both sides finalize the export documentation.
China agreed in principle to remove its ban on U.S. products in October, 2009. According to USDA, negotiations to implement that agreement have been ongoing ever since. The United States has repeatedly stressed the need for China to remove all restrictions on trade in pork products related to the H1N1 virus because there is no risk to humans from consuming pork and pork products.
On Thursday, the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China (AQSIQ) accepted the U.S. proposal to resume exports of U.S. pork, following meetings between Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services James Miller, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Agricultural Affairs Jim Murphy and Chinese officials in Beijing earlier this week.
Demand potential
Twenty percent of U.S. pork production was exported in 2009. Prior to H1N1 trade constraints, U.S. pork and pork variety meats exports to China were valued at nearly $275 million in 2008. China was the United States’ seventh largest market, accounting for six percent of U.S. pork and pork variety meat exports.
Pork industry analysts, however, have cautioned that China’s current pork import needs might not match 2008 levels, when China was hosting the Olympics and hog herds were reduced by disease and brutal weather. Since then, China has rapidly rebuilt its hog herd.
Earlier this week a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said the government will take measures to stabilize pork prices, which have been falling due to excess supply. (See Chinese government looks to prop up pork prices on Meatingplace, March 17, 2010.)
