Source:  Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 5/31/11

The U.S. beef industry needs more meaningful access to China, but a variety of stumbling blocks are preventing that from happening, a top U.S. trade official said.

Ambassador Isi Siddiqui, chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, told participants Friday during the closing session of the U.S. Meat Export Federation Board of Directors meeting that he is disappointed that the market remains closed to U.S. beef.

China’s insistence on excluding certain offal products is a primary stumbling block, but others include border protection, traceability and China's insistence that beef from fed cattle of Mexican origin be excluded, he said.

"We will continue to engage China," Siddiqui said.

Asia accounts for almost half of U.S. beef exports, and China’s growing influence on the rest of the region has renewed interest in access to the country of 1.3 billion, Joel Haggard, senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific region, said during a press conference last Wednesday at the meeting’s kickoff.

As the U.S. meat industry overall remains off to a good start in 2011 – exports are down in just two markets, Mexico (5 percent) and Taiwan (18 percent) – beef exports are soaring, up 32 percent in the first three months of the year, according to Phil Seng, president and CEO.

Mexico remains the largest market for beef, pork and lamb, and the Middle East has become one of the best performing regions for U.S. beef exports — but all eyes remain on China.

Desperately trying to remain self-sufficient, China is facing increased beef consumption, which is expected to exceed its ability to produce beef domestically. Couple that with record-high beef prices in China last month, and U.S. beef producers are facing plenty of potential.

“The Chinese like our type of grain-fed products for their tabletop roasts and their steaks,” Haggard said. “With foodservice in China doubling revenues every five years, that industry is the size of Japan’s and 100 percent larger than when we exited the market in 2003.”

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