Source:  Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 3/24/10

U.S. pork industry officials are celebrating China's recent reopening to U.S. pork exports, but cautioning that re-entry will be slow because Beijing has increased production since 2008.

Philip Seng, CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, said China has been "somewhat successful" in ramping up pork production in the last couple years and has prevented the recurrence of health and sanitation issues such as the blue ear outbreak of 2007.

As such, the country's warehouses are relatively full of pork.
"So we don't anticipate there's going to be the [volume] of pork going in there as there was in 2008," Seng said. U.S. pork and pork variety meat exports to China peaked in 2008, totaling 366 million pounds valued at more than $334 million.

However, Seng said the scenario can change very quickly. He noted that relative to the size of the Chinese market and its consumer base, the country's pork inventory is small, especially when compared with other Asian markets like Japan and Korea. Japan, in fact, will carry more inventory on a monthly basis than China, he said.

'Volatility'

Seng said that speaks to the "volatility in China."

"That's why China knows it is important for them to have certain markets that can supply them," he said.

U.S. pork exports to China plummeted more than 60 percent in 2009. China's ban on fears of H1N1 played a large role, but domestic supply also was a factor; China's imports from all pork suppliers fell by 42 percent in 2009.

China, however, remained the world's fifth-largest pork importer by volume.

Seng said China's "voracious" appetite for pork variety meats, which make up 75 percent of the total U.S. pork exports shipped there, presents a promising opportunity for U.S. suppliers.

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