Work Continues to Open China to U.S. Beef Exports

Over the past 18 to 24 months, China has become the fastest-growing market in the world for imported beef. In 2013, China’s beef imports increased nearly 400 percent in value from the previous year, reaching $1.33 billion. Through August, China’s 2014 imports are 17 percent ahead of last year’s pace at $961 million.
This is a major source of frustration for the U.S. beef industry, because China is one of the few markets that never reopened to U.S. beef following the December 2003 BSE case.
Thad Lively, U.S. Meat Export Federation senior vice president for trade access, explains that while efforts to regain access to China are progressing, an announcement that the market is reopening is not imminent.
Lively:”In the last 18 months we’ve seen imports into China really take off. And of course, we’ve been sitting on the sideline while that has been going on. We were encouraged late last year when both governments came out saying that they have set the objective to open the market by this summer. Of course that has come and gone — and the market is still closed but there have been some meetings, recently between the two governments. There are going to be some more opportunities between now and the end of the year for some more high-level meetings between U.S. and China. So we always look at those kind of meetings as a places where we could possibly see some movement. We know from the experience we’ve had working our way back into markets all over the world, that this is never a fast process. It is never a simple process. No reason to expect China to open its door today, or tomorrow abut there this is work