China is Fastest Growing Beef Import Market

In September China announced that the ban against importing U.S. beef had been lifted. It is important to note that is a critical first step. Before we discuss, what needs to happen next, let's visit about China's market potential for U.S. beef.

China is the world's fastest growing beef import market, with beef/beef variety imports in 2015 totaling 494,947 metric tons (mt) valued at $2.39 billion. Through July, China's 2016 imports are 48 percent ahead of last year's pace in volume and up 37 percent in value.

National Cattlemen's Beef Association Director of International Trade Kent Bacus shares additional details

Bacus: "It is important to realize the buying power of China represents. It is one-fifth of the world's population and China's middle class is larger than the entire population of the United States. That represents a huge buying power which means we could have yet another large and somewhat wealthy consumer base competing for U.S. beef. And that means more value per head for U.S. cattlemen which is exactly what we need at a time when we have cattle prices fluctuating every where. We need to secure these export markets and we need to have more people competing for U.S. beef."

We will continue our conversation tomorrow with Bacus about what the next steps are in the process of gaining Chinese market share for U.S. beef.