Ministry of Agriculture calls for further approval for meat exports to China

The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply, Tereza Cristina, said that during her recent trip to Asia, she asked the Chinese government to open a permanent negotiation channel to approve new plants to export meat to the Asian country. Her suggestion is that technical teams from both countries carry out visits every two or three months.

According to the minister, the Chinese were willing to approve 20 more Brazilian slaughterhouses, but she does not consider this satisfactory given the scale of the Brazilian beef market.

“God willing, in the near future we will put this [news] on the ministry website. We will have 100 slaughterhouses, 200 slaughterhouses approved to export to the most diverse countries of the world, and then the Chinese will be able to come here and buy from whoever they want. The Ministry of Agriculture has to give confidence that they are buying from authorized plants, with credibility to comply with the protocols. We were very careful in this negotiation and I think we will have good news,” said the minister.

For this to happen, it was agreed with China that the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture should officially certify the plants that are suitable for export, having complied with the protocols signed with the Chinese and also with the countries in the rest of the world.

The criteria for approval and how many plants will be approved for export to China were discussed on Wednesday (22 May) with the representatives of the slaughtering associations in Brazil. Brazil has 210 million heads and slaughters 30 million heads per year.

The following DataLiner chart shows the trends in Brazilian beef imports by China from January 2015 to March 2019.

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