China's growing appetite for beef and pork has boosted meat exports in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, with more potential to be tapped in the Chinese market.
China, one of the main markets for Brazilian beef, bought 906 million U.S. dollars' worth of Brazilian beef from June 2015 to January 2016, or 28 percent of the sector's total revenue, said a report by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade earlier this year.
Despite China's rising demand for beef, there is still a great potential for growth in the Chinese market, with only 6 kg of beef bought per capita each year at present, compared with 35-40 kg in Brazil and around 60 kg in Argentina.
China imposed a three-year embargo on Brazilian beef imports in May last year following an atypical epidemic of mad cow disease in 2012. The embargo was then lifted after Brazil imposed stricter controls.
In the past two years, Brazil has become China's main source of beef and pork.
Mexico's first ever shipment of pork to China marked a milestone in trade, said Mexican industry officials.
China's meat market is a tough one to break into, given the strict sanitary requirements, but once the market has been cracked open, it promises to provide Mexican meat industry with brisk business, they said.
Claudio Freixes Catalan, the CEO of a leading pork and meat producer in Mexico named Keken, said his company secured the sale of 22 tons of pork to China following seven years of negotiations, and the shipment sailed in July.
"The Chinese market is very selective, and it doesn't want meat from countries that have had any kind of sanitary problem," he told Xinhua, adding that "Mexico is free of any kind of virus related to swine."
To Mexican Agriculture Minister Jose Calzada Rovirosa, exporting meat to China reflects Mexico's progress in this sector.
Throughout history, "it is the first time Mexico shipped pork to China," he said, describing the day the shipment went out as "special."
Mexico also exports avocado, berries, tequila, and other products to China, but opening up China's market to Mexican pork is expected to boost trade significantly, he said.
China will surely keep purchasing Mexican pork in the future, as "we will continue to use specific lines of production" that meet the country's sanitary standards, he said.
In the next five years, Keken expects to see 350 million U.S. dollars in investment, which it will largely earmark to promote its exports, said the CEO.
China is also Argentina's biggest beef market, importing more than 40,000 tons in 2015, or 36 percent of Argentina's annual beef exports.
The two countries reached a "landmark beef deal" in July that will secure Argentina's beef exports to China in the future, said an industrial trade website Global Meat News.
