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Re-entry of pork into China could be slow

The recent announcement that China is reopening its market to U.S. pork is certainly good news for the pork industry.  But the head of the U.S. Meat Export Federation—Phil Seng—cautions that re-entry may be slow because of China’s increased pork production since 2008.

“They do have a lot of pork that they’ve been producing and their warehouses are quite full of pork right now,” Seng says, “so we don’t anticipate there’s going to be the velocity of pork going in there as there was in 2008.”

But Seng says it’s a situation that can change very quickly.

“It’s kind of amazing when you look at the inventory levels in China—when you look at the size of the market and the size of the consumer base in that market, the amount of inventory they have is really small in comparison to countries like Japan or Korea,” says Seng, “and I think that’s one of the things about the volatility in China—that’s why China knows it is important to have certain markets that can supply them.”

U.S. pork exports to China fell by more than 60 percent in 2009