China temporarily suspends beef imports from Brazilian meat processor

China will temporarily suspend the entry of beef from Minerva Foods’ Barretos (SP) unit. This information was received from the China General Administration of Customs (GACC), which did not detail the reasons for the suspension.

According to the statement, products from the meat processor using import declaration SIF 421 will be suspended for one week and the processes will automatically resume after this period.

New licenses

Despite this suspension, after temporarily halting the process of licensing meat processors for export due to the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, China may resume the licensing of new units in South America later this year. This information is from the president of Marfrig’s South American operation, Miguel Gularte.

According to him, “new approvals are expected for Brazil and Argentina for the second half of 2020”, without giving further details.

The last round of Chinese qualifications for new meat processors in Brazil took place in the second half of 2019. Since then, industry representatives have expected more approvals but the pandemic has restricted access to industrial units for technical visits. Video inspections have been carried out, but the qualifications have not yet materialized.

The African swine flu, which decimated the Chinese herds, and the devalued dollar have both kept Brazilian pork exports up in 2020. See the graph below for exports of animal protein from Brazil and Meat Plate to China since 2017:

Exports from Brazil and Meat Plate (HS 0202, 0203 and 0207) to China | Jan 2017 to Aug 2020 | TEU

Graph source: DataLiner (To request a DataLiner demo click here)

Report source: Reuters

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