AUSTRALIAN beef exports to China grew over 300 per cent last year and, although not at that rate, will continue to grow at a healthy rate for the foreseeable future.
This was the message given by Rengang Huan from the Chinese Embassy in Canberra gave to graziers from across the Far North who met at the DPI Mareeba District Office for the Northern Beef Producer Forum.
For the full gallery of photos from the forum click on the photo below.
Mr Huang told the Forum that as a result of Chinese growing middle class, it has gone from a net exporter of beef (markets were the Middle East and Korea) to a net importer. The 150,000 tonnes imported last year from Australia represented just 1pc of China’s current annual beef consumption.
China presently has a herd of 104 million cattle making it the third largest cattle herd in the world behind the USA and Brazil compared to Australia’s 27 million cattle. Mr Huang said the big difference in future cattle production in the two countries was that Australia had an extraordinary amount of land to increase production whereas there was little left in China for beef industry expansion.
China slaughters around 46 million cattle annually producing 6.5m tonnes of beef
In 2012 China consumes 6.57 million tonnes of beef which equated to just 4.5kg consumed per head of population - just a fifth of the per head consumption of that in the developed countries. In 2015 beef consumption in China is expected to reach 7.21 million tonnes and 7.96 million tonnes by 2020 but he said these figures could turn out to be seriously underestimated.
Mr Huang said that because of cultural aspects China preferred to import chilled beef as opposed to live cattle imports.
He commented that Australian beef was highly regarded and very expensive in China and sold only in top class restaurants.
To export beef to China, Certificates of Export Registration and Qualification are needed. The licenses are issued by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China (AQSIQ). In the past there has been a lot of bureaucratic process to plough through and it took an inordinate amount of time.
With the Chinese government continuing to relax many of its import restriction this process is expected to become simpler.
Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Argentina, Canada and Costa Rica have been certified to export beef to China whereas USA and Brazilian beef imports have been banned due to Mad Cow Disease issues.
