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It will take more than demand to re-open China to U.S. beef

U.S. Meat Export Federation officials say that demand alone will not reopen China’s market to U.S. beef.  The federation’s Asia Pacific senior vice-president Joel Haggard says demand for beef in China is growing, but he says it will take more than that to re-open the market that’s been closed since 2003.

“I don’t think that demand itself will push this across the line,” said Haggard, responding to a question from Brownfield Ag News during a news conference at the USMEF Board of the Directors meeting in St. Louis.  “It’s still going to require government-to-government negotiations to work on a protocol that meets China’s import conditions.”

Federation CEO Philip Seng says U.S. government officials are working to reopen the market, but he says the country is not easy to work with.

“China can be a very opaque place,” Seng told Brownfield Ag News.  “You’ll see a government official maybe will be in a position, for example, the negotiators that we deal with, maybe two years, maybe three at the most, then they’re changed.  So there’s probably five or six different changes of people.”

China closed its market to U.S. beef when a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered nearly 13 years ago.

AUDIO: Philip Seng (7 min. MP3)