Danilo Macedo Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – One of the concrete results of the visit to China by president Dilma Rousseff is the opening of that market for the first time to Brazilian pork. The Chinese have authorized imports from three Brazilian meatpackers (“frigoríficos”). The minister of Agriculture, Wagner Rossi, told reporters that the announcement was a victory in Brazil's efforts to increase exports of higher aggregate value to China.

The president of the Brazilian Pork Producer and Exporter Association, Pedro de Camargo Neto, who is in China as part of the presidential mission, declared that permission for three meatpackers represented the opening of the Chinese market and that the task ahead was to expand it further.

At the moment, China has become the largest importer of Brazilian chicken; in 2010, exports of chicken to China were worth almost $220 million. Beef exports are small. With the opening for pork, there will be an effort to increase meat exports to China in general, declared Camargo Neto.

On the other hand, total Brazilian farm produce exported to China in 2010 was worth $11 billion, up from $3.5 billion just three years ago in 2007.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - China abre mercado para carne suína brasileira