News

China’s premier says beef imports will resume soon

A top Chinese official says China will resume imports of U.S. beef soon.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang made the comment Tuesday in a meeting with U.S. business groups in New York.

U.S. Meat Export Federation spokesman Joe Schuele says they would welcome a reopening of the Chinese market.

“It’s certainly an issue of great interest to the beef industry, simply because China is the world’s fastest growing beef market—and it’s a market we certainly do want to participate in,” Schuele says.

AUDIO: Joe Schuele

 

Previous predictions on the reopening of China’s beef market have failed to materialize. But Nebraska director of agriculture Greg Ibach thinks this time may be different.

“We did host, just last week in Nebraska, a team of Chinese that were looking at our traceability system—which we understood, at that time, was one of the last pieces of the puzzle that they needed to be comfortable with in order to move forward on opening beef exports,” Ibach says.

AUDIO: Greg Ibach

 

The Chinese premier did not give a specific timetable on when U.S. beef purchases might resume.

China stopped buying U.S. beef in 2003 over BSE concerns.