China lifts ban on some German beef imports

BEIJING, April 16 (Reuters) – China has lifted mad cow disease-related bans on some German beef imports, Chinese customs authorities said, after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pressed Chinese counterparts for better market access in a visit to Beijing.

The easing applies to de-boned beef from calves under 30 months imported from Germany, China’s General Administration of Customs said in a Wechat post.

The change takes effect from April 16, the date of the announcement.

China also agreed to open its borders to beef and apple imports from Germany and facilitate pork imports, Scholz said on Tuesday.

Scholz was speaking on the final day of his three-day trip to China, during which he met with President Xi Jinping and pressed Chinese counterparts for better market access, saying Germany did not want to “decouple” from China.

By Reuters

Slow down in China’s beef demand hits key suppliers

China’s beef imports are dwindling amid slowing consumption and ample domestic supply, dealing a blow to its biggest supplier, Brazil.

Official data shows the value of China beef imports fell last year for the first time since at least 2016, with prices plunging to the lowest level in almost three years. Import volumes are expected to fall 4pc this year, ending 12 straight years of meteoric rise, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The predicament highlights the risks in relying heavily on a single customer: China was the destination for more than 52pc of the South American country’s beef sales last year even after halting imports for roughly two months over a case of mad cow disease. While the nation’s meatpackers have sought to diversify their exports, alternatives remain limited.

“Brazil depends a lot on China – if there’s a hiccup in China, it will affect Brazil very badly,” said XP Investimentos analyst Leonardo Alencar.

China’s share in the global meat trade has plunged from a 2020 peak following an increase in domestic meat supplies. The nation is expected to produce 7.7 million metric tons this year, up 1 million tons from 2020, according to the USDA. An economic slowdown has prompted consumers to seek cheaper proteins.

Clarice Couto and Gerson Freitas | Irish Independent

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Brazil says China clears 38 more meat plants for export

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First shipment of Russian pork arrives in China

First Russian pork on its way to China

A Chinese regulator granted permission for pork export to the first 3 Russian pig companies, Russian veterinary body Rosselhoznandzor announced.

RusAgro, a large Russian pig producer, scheduled to deliver the first pork to China in March 2024, Agroexport reported. The first contracts with local customers have already been signed.

In addition, the green light to export pork to China was granted to Miratorg and Velokoluksky Meat Processing Plant. “The access procedure has been completed. Deliveries can begin as early as tomorrow,” the Russian Union of Pork Producers (RUPP) said in a statement on February 28.

The number of pig companies certified for export to China will grow, Yuri Kovalev, RUPP chairman, said. In the long run, Russia could export around 200,000 tonnes of pork per year to China. It will take time for the exports to get into full gear.

Russian pig companies will experiment with different supply schemes and settlement options this year. In this light, if 15,000 to 25,000 tonnes of pork land on the Chinese market by the end of the year, it will be a good start, Kovalev said.

“This is an important signal to investors that they need to scale up investments in the construction of new capacities. In the coming years, China will import at least 2-3 million tonnes of pork per year. And to ensure large volumes of supplies from Russia and at the same time not forget about the Russian consumer, we need to continue to build pig farms and slaughterhouses,” Miratorg said.

Vladislav Vorotnikov | Pig Progress

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Boosting pork exports to Southeast Asia: Russia launches the Meat Shuttle

Russian pork exports to China begin ahead of schedule

Russia sends first pork shipment to China in 15 years

Russia has announced that it has sent pork to China for the first time since 2008 when the Chinese Government imposed a ban on Russian due to African Swine Fever.

Russia sent 27 tonnes of pork to China on Thursday, according to Russia’s veterinary and phytosanitary service, Rosselkhoznadzor, Reuters reports.

“On March 7, the Rosselkhoznadzor monitored the shipment of the first batch of Russian-made pork to China with a volume of 27 tonnes,” Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement.

The shipment came after China lifted ASF restrictions, which had been in force against Russia since 2008, in September 2023. Rosselkhoznadzor said it had been trying to open up the Chinese market to Russian pork for some years

China is still by a long distance, the world’s biggest pork importer, despite its import volumes dropping in recent years as its herd recovers from its own ASF outbreak.

The biggest exporters of pork and offal to China are currently Brazil, Spain, Canada, the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands, but Russia is hoping to muscle in and secure 5% of that lucrative market, according to the Russian National Union of Pig Breeders.

Alistair Driver | Pig World

China scraps Brazilian poultry tariff

SAO PAULO : China’s government has opted to not renew a tariff on imports of poultry products from Brazil, the South American nation said on Tuesday.

China hit Brazil with a tariff of between 17.8 per cent and 34.2 per cent in 2019 on its poultry in a bid to prevent “dumping,” an industry term in which a market is flooded with cheaper product from abroad.

More than a dozen Brazilian firms had also signed “price commitments” with the Chinese government to keep prices above a certain level, Brazil’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“Such measures harmed the competitiveness of Brazilian products in the Chinese market,” the ministry said.

Now, the import tariff on Brazilian poultry has “fallen to zero,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on social media network X.

The tariff expired on Feb. 17, according to the ministry.

Reuters | CNA

China’s Pork Prices Rebound Amid Lunar New Year Stockpiling, Yet Challenges Loom

In a notable turn of events, pork and hog prices in China experienced a resurgence last week, driven by last-minute stockpiling activities ahead of the Lunar New Year.

This boost in values occurred against the backdrop of inclement weather conditions, including snow and rain, across much of the country, as reported by market participants to Agricensus on Monday.

China’s pig prices have been facing downward pressure due to factors such as weak consumer spending, the resurgence of African swine fever, and abundant hog and pig inventories since around August of the previous year.

According to data from China’s Agriculture Ministry published on Monday, the average price of piglets in China increased by 8.7% week-on-week to CNY26.42/kg ($3.71/kg) last week. However, this still represents a significant 20.5% drop from the same period a year ago.

With hog supplies still relatively ample and high levels of frozen pork storage, analysts from China Post Securities anticipate a decline in pig prices after the festival concludes. Despite the recent uptick, challenges persist for China’s pork market.

Jim Eadie | Swineweb

Argentina exported 682,000 tons of beef last year, mostly to China

Argentina is forecasted to increase 5,1% beef and calf production this year, reaching some 3,3 million tons with a domestic consumption of 2.43 million tons, according to the latest report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This follows on a record beef exports 2023, 682.000 tons, despite government measures and export levies aimed at curbing prices in the home market in an election year.

The beef shipments (bone-in and boneless) of 682,000 tons, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries of Argentina were collected by the consultancy Safras & Mercado. The volume is 7.7% higher than the 633,000 tons exported in 2022.

“This growth trend is closely tied to China, which bought 73% of boneless meat and virtually all bone-in meat sold by Argentina,” said analyst Fernando Iglesias from Safras & Mercado.

Argentina caters to a different Chinese demand than Brazil’s: the exported animals are mostly cull females aged over 40 months. Brazilian livestock farmers are required to supply young animals as old as 30 months to the Chinese market.

Local analysts agree that one of the factors that allowed Argentina to export more was a “discreet” increase in local production, according to the analyst.

However, “the deterioration of the purchasing power of the Argentine population reduces the ability to keep meat in the domestic market,” said Hyberville Neto, director of the consultancy HN Agro.

MercoPress

Pig industry in Poland heads deeper into crisis

The coming months will be particularly challenging for the pig industry in Poland. Polish pig farmers are struggling to make ends meet, says Wiesław Różański, president of the Polish Union of meat industry producers and Employers.

Currently, the industry is not in the best shape, which is equally true for the breeding and processing segment, Różański said. He added that the pig population in the country plummeted to the lowest level in several decades and kept declining. The key issue hindering the industry’s development, he claimed, is a lack of stability.

To a large extent, African swine fever (ASF) is to blame. ASF keeps raging not only in Europe but also in China, sending shockwaves through the global market. As a result, pig farms in Poland in the past few years were less profitable than before, while some see their marginality diving into a red zone.

Różański disclosed that 40,000 pig farmers in Poland curtailed operations last year, and this trend continued in 2023.

“On average, a dozen farms close their doors each day. This problem is especially alarming for small breeders,” Różański said. “The problems in the breeding segment have a direct impact on the meat processors and slaughterhouses, who find it difficult to source live pigs.”

UkrAgroConsult.com

China to stop COVID testing chilled & frozen foods from January 8th

HONG KONG, Dec 30 (Reuters) – China’s meat trade on Friday cheered the imminent end of testing and disinfecting chilled and frozen foods for COVID-19, more than two years after Beijing started the controversial practice, adding substantial costs to the trade.

The State Administration for Market Regulation will stop testing chilled and frozen foods for COVID-19 from Jan. 8, according to a notice seen by Reuters and confirmed by the agency.

It will also no longer require all imported chilled and frozen foods to enter centralised warehouses for disinfection and testing before they reach the domestic market.

Reuters

China releases 20,000 tons of central pork reserves

Chinese authorities on Friday stepped up efforts to stabilize pork prices with the release of 20,000 tons of pork from central reserves while reiterating their resolution to combat the fluctuation of pork prices.

A batch of 20,000 tons of pork from central reserves was released for bidding on Friday. It is the sixth batch of central reserves to be released by China in 2022. A total of 107,100 tons of pork have been released into the market in the past five rounds of issuance since September, Beijing News reported.

The issuance of the central pork reserve comes as China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner, said that it would step up efforts to stabilize pig prices amid soaring pork prices.

NDRC said on its official WeChat account on Friday that all localities are required to increase the release of pork reserves in order to meet the demand for key festive consumption such as New Year’s Day and Chinese New Year, and in areas where prices are too high.

The NDRC stressed that at present, pork reserves at the central and local levels remain sufficient, and there is a solid basis for dealing with the abnormal fluctuation in pork prices.

By Global Times