World Meat Congress Hears of Growing Importance of China to Meat Sector

The growing importance of China to the international meat and livestock sectors was a major message from the World Meat Congress in Beijing this week.

With a rising population, growing urbanisation and rising economy, the demand for meat products is increasing across all sectors.

Last year China slaughtered more than 715.5 million pigs producing nearly 55 million tonnes of pig meat and taking more than 50 per cent of global production.

China imported 25 per cent of the global sheep meat trade last year and beef imports into the country are also rising with growing prices.

The growth of consumption and trade in China is helping to paint a positive picture for the global meat sector.

Market analyst Richard Brown from GIRA said that following the gloomier picture in 2013 when the market was hit by high feed costs, this year with grain costs down and despite continued high price of feed, feed costs for the livestock sector have fallen.

Prices for meat producers are now higher and consumption across the world is rising by about 1.5 per cent.

Despite China’s large and expanding production of meat across all the livestock sectors, the country still needs to import to fulfil consumer demand and imports out-weigh exports, with the gap widening.

“China has become a more important market for the world as a whole,” Mr Brown told the World Meat Congress.

“Consumption is up, there are rising high prices and imports are growing. In two years China now represents 25 per cent of the global sheep meat trade.”

He added that major Chinese meat processing companies are now in the top 10 meat companies in the world and are having a major impact on the global meat trade.