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China's meat market: beef imports are growing, pork is falling

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The Asian country imported less meat last month but beef imports are on a growing trend.

Posted on Oct 19 ,07:59

Despite a significant drop in meat imports reported by China for September (-17%), there is one product which is on a growing trend. beef imports for September were higher than the volumes reported for the last 5 months and larger than the ones reported in 2020. 220,000 tonnes of beef have entered China (mainland) last month, similar to the volumes reported for March this year and significantly higher than the ones reported for each month of 2020, informs B2B platform Beef to China, quoting data from the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC). (see chart below)

In terms of value, this is an all-time record reported in the Chinese beef market: $1.33 billion and the growing trend is expected to continue for the last quarter of the year.
Meantime, pork imports have dropped to 210,000 tonnes, almost 50% lower than the volume reported in September 2020 (310,00 tonnes). Since March this year, pork imports have been on a descending trend, going down from 580,000 to 210,000 tonnes last month (see chart below).

Domestic production is expected to remain strong for the rest of the year but analysts believe China will resume pork imports at elevated levels in the first part of 2022 due to a contraction in the national pig inventory.

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