Well-known U.S. Chinese language newspaper World Journal recently reported that the U.S. advantage in the Chinese pork market is changing. The United States used to have a significant market share in the Chinese pork market. However, in April, China increased the U.S. pork import tariff by 25 percent and increased it again in July to 70 percent. This resulted in pork imported from the U.S. being very pricey. An additional situation is that China is now suffering from swine fever, which has added to its dependency on imported pork. The situation has been driving Chinese importers to turn to Europe and South America. Both Spain’s largest pork supplier El Pozo Alimentacion SA and some Argentina government officials told the press that they received orders from China. It appears that U.S. pork manufacturers will be hurt in the short run. In the long run, the global pork supply chain will most likely reshuffle. As the largest pork market, China consumes half of world’s pork. Today’s Chinese domestic supply level will not be able to fulfill the entire domestic demand.
Source: World Journal, October 20, 2018
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