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USMEF: US/China beef deal stringent but very important

The U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) says the long-awaited agreement to ship U.S. beef to China is good but does have some stringent production requirements, “It is now clearer, exactly, what we’re going to have to do to export to this market. In some respects, the requirements go beyond what we must do to have access to a lot of markets around the world.”

Thad Lively, who leads trade access for USMEF, says beef exports to China will likely start out slowly but build over time, “We have access to the Chinese market under better terms than any other beef exporting country. We’re going to have access for far more of the carcass than any of our competitors.”

Lively says there is a lot to like in the agreement, including eligibility for chilled beef, “And this is going to be critically important because the customers we’re looking at, especially early on, are going to be high-end, food service and retail customers in China and they’re going to be looking for chilled beef.”

Lively says U.S. beef will be at the top of the Chinese market with the highest quality product available. He says a lot of areas of the agreement turned out a lot better than many at USMEF thought they would and they owe the folks at USDA and the US government, broadly, a big “thank you” for.