World meat industry news

Russian pork producers expect serious competition in the fight for the Chinese market. Sfera reports this with reference to data from the head of the National Union of Pig Breeders and member of the ROSNG Expert Council Yuri Kovalev.

At the same time, the expert assured that our country is ready for this. According to him, in the next few years our country plans to take a 10 percent share there. He calculated that even taking into account the resumption of pork production after numerous outbreaks of African swine fever (ASF), the Celestial Empire will purchase from 2.5 to three million tons of pig products per year. Kovalev also compared the prospects of entering this market with conquering it in Vietnam. The expert noted that in the latter country, competition for sales is not so tough, and domestic pig farmers have already managed to achieve more significant success there. The reason for this, he cited the presence of a free trade zone in Vietnam, thanks to which pork can be supplied there without duties.

Kovalev also spoke about how the process of Russian pig farmers entering the Chinese market is progressing. According to him, the Chinese delegation is already studying the situation at specialized enterprises in Russian regions, where there have been no ASF outbreaks for a year. The expert recalled that today in Russia more than 80 percent of pork exports come from just five companies. Previously, he reported that before supplying pork to China, it is planned to resolve a number of technical issues, for example, agree on the conditions for importing products, certify specific domestic enterprises interested in exporting, etc. Then he clarified that this work would be completed no later than the first half of next year.

China's approval of Russian pork supplies was facilitated by serious preparatory work by the Russian authorities and the producers themselves. The former provided their Chinese colleagues with a wide range of information in terms of product quality and safety and on other issues of interest to them, and also spoke about the work of the system for controlling African swine fever (ASF) and other diseases of these animals. The latter confirmed the reliability of the products with documents and improved the epizootic condition of their own enterprises, which also allowed Chinese specialists to verify them during numerous inspections. Of course, Asian partners studied the work of similar systems against other diseases, but ASF was a priority in this regard. The first reason is that it is one of the most dangerous diseases of pigs. The second is that China itself suffered very seriously from it, which over the decades of its outbreaks in the country has lost many millions of animals. Another important point was that China allowed the import of pork based on the principle of regionalization. It means that products can be imported from regions that are epizootically free from diseases inherent in the animals from which they are obtained. Until then, China had not recognized this principle for many years.