China’s appetite for American pork insatiable

China is importing more pork from countries like the US than ever before, proving that America can successfully export to China.

China’s imports of pork and pork byproducts for the period ending September 30 totaled 870,000 tons this being a 44.6% increase from the same period a year earlier. According to figures from the Ministry of Commerce imports from the United States went up by 700% in both value and amount. The other major importers of pork and its byproducts to China areDenmark and Canada.

Analysts believe that such imports have been spurred by the rising domestic pork prices in China and prospective Finnish and Mexican pork exporters were in the country recently.

China is world’s largest pork consumer and such imports form only a small percentage of the total consumption in the country, so many see much greater market potential .

Soozhu.com’s chief analyst Feng Yonghui said that there have been concerns that the foreign pork imports are partly to blame for the falling pork prices, with a kilo now costing ¥16.8 per kilogram down from ¥19.4 per kilogram early September. Soozhu.com is a Chinese firm that gives forecasts on live hog and pork prices.

Industry watchers believe that pork prices will continue to rise as more farmers opt out of the industry due to skyrocketing costs.