European beef exports to China are increasing
In January 2020, China has increased the volume of beef imported from the European countries allowed to ship export in this market. 7 beef producing countries from Europe (not only the EU) have shipped last year a total of 16,151 tonnes of beef to China, with Ireland accounting for 7,170 tonnes. The rest was imported from Belarus (6,126 tonnes), Serbia (1,245 tonnes), the Netherlands (577 tonnes), Hungary (466 tonnes), France (328 tonnes) and Ukraine (239 tonnes).
At the beginning of 2020, just before the coronavirus outbreak erupted in China, the volume of beef imported from these countries has reached 3,240 tonnes of beef, getting closer to 20% of the total volume of beef imports recorded in 2019. The highest rate of growth was reported by Ukraine, 477 tonnes, almost double from the previous year. Also, Hungary has reached 242 tonnes of beef exported to China in January, while Ireland and Belarus, the main suppliers of European beef in the Chinese market in 2019, have shipped each more than 1,000 tonnes in January.
There is a clear sign that Chinese importers are looking for cheaper products than the ones contracted last year from major players in the global beef market such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia or New Zealand. All of these countries, except Australia, are currently seeing a plunge in prices of acquisition for beef due to both low demand in China and the disruptive impact on logistics brought by the coronavirus outbreak.
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