Spain has made a fortune exporting pork to China. Now a gigantic enemy has emerged: Russia

A troubled river, fishermen gain. Or from the Russian ranchers, if the case may be. With relations between Beijing and the European Union (EU) strained as a result of tariff policy, Moscow has seen its great opportunity to gain a foothold in a particularly juicy market: that of Chinese demand for exported pork. Muscle not missing. And after returning this year to the Chinese butcher shops, from which he had almost a decade and a half separated by Beijing’s health restrictions, in the Russian sector there are those already aspires to keep the EU quota.

The big question is: What can we expect from now on?

To start, some figures. China the largest producer of the pork world. But also a huge, gigantic market that matters every year hundreds of thousands tons of pork pieces worth billions of dollars. More specifically, some 3.5 billionaccording to data of World’s Top Export, although there are those who talk about figures considerably higher if the entire market is taken into account, including the viscera. Among these figures, the European Union and especially Spain have an important weight.

Although meat from many other countries arrives at Chinese stores, including Brazil, Canada and the US, the EU has managed to open a more than respectable gap in the flow of Chinese imports. Reuters figures its weight in 51% (it exceeded 60%), with contributions from the Netherlands, Denmark, France and especially Spain. For reference, a year ago Icex boasted that in 2020 Spain had become the main exporter to China, with 24% of the meat flow. In 2023 that position would have been occupied by Brazil, with 26%but Spain continued to remain in second place.

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script twist. Despite these data and the overwhelming weight that pork has among Spanish agri-food exports to China (about 63%), the future of this trade flow has been filled with dark clouds over the last few months. And for a reason that apparently has little or nothing to do with pig farming: electric vehicles.

The controversy It comes from months ago and in Xataka we have told you in detail, but its summary is simple: after seeing how Brussels raised tariffs To the arrival of electric cars “made in China”, Beijing reacted by targeting the European pork sector, announcing a investigation antidumping focused on pork imports from the EU. Test of the “panic” What this blow generated among Spanish ranchers is that the Government and the producers made a move almost immediatelytraveling in person to China in an attempt to shield a market that in 2023 reached a value of more than 1.2 billion.

Russia regains ground. The Chinese pork sector does not only leave bad news. At least for Russia, which at the beginning of the year managed to gain a foothold in the Asian market by sending a modest batch of meat pork to China. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was an important milestone for several reasons. The main one is that they were the first pork exports that Moscow brought to the Asian giant in almost a decade and a half, since Beijing had applied restrictions in 2008 due to the african swine fever.

The second reason is that this shipment has seemed to mark the starting signal for the expansion of Russian pork into the Chinese market. In June already had quadrupled its supply, triggering both shipments of frozen meat and by-products. From Moscow, in fact, it is expected that China will expand the list of Russian suppliers authorized to operate in its national market (now there are only three), which according to your calculations It would boost its global flow of pork exports by several tens of thousands of tons by 2025.

60,000 tons (or more). “If the new Russian producers do not gain access in 2205, we predict that exports to China will amount to 60,000-70,000 tons. But if another five or six companies are certified early next year, an increase in volume can be expected to 100,000 tons”, recently valued the general director of the National Union of Pork Producers, Yuri Kovalev, in statements collected by Interfax. In fact, the manager remembers that in July Russia already entered the TOP 5 of China’s suppliers.

Objective: grow in quota. It is not the only clue that demonstrates the interest that Russia has in the Asian market and, above all, the extent to which it hopes or trusts in taking advantage of the trade tensions that have arisen between China and one of its main suppliers, the EU. In February Reuters explained that the Russian National Union of Pig Breeders aspired to attract 5% of the Chinese import market. In August the goal It was already 10%. And in December Kovalev stood out that, having shipped almost 38,000 in less than a year, China has become “one of the top three buyers of Russian pork” by 2024.

Don’t say tension, say opportunity. The Russian attempt to gain market share in China, even at the expense of other suppliers, is no secret. Yuri Kovalyov, representative of the pork sector, openly acknowledged this to Reuters a few months ago: “For us these trade tensions represent an opportunity to show our competitiveness in the Chinese market,” explained due to the tension in Beijing-Brussels relations due to tariffs on electric cars.

In a way even clearer Dmitri Reva, an expert in the Russian consumer market, expressed himself during an interview with the Chinese media Guancha. “If necessary we could fully satisfy the demand for imported pork from Europe. In three years we could supply a million tonnes or more of pork per year,” I was reflecting the researcher: “We are fully capable of replacing Spanish exports of 600,000 tons of pork to China. However, at present it is possible that China is not very interested in that option.”

What is Russia’s capacity? According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, throughout the 2023/2024 period, Russia stood out as one of the main pork producers on the planet. His production quota It was still far from that of the entire EU, the US, Brazil and of course China itself, but it already represented 3%, with a production considerably higher than that of Vietnam, Canada or Mexico. Your sector also seems to be gaining muscle. Compared to the 4.9 million tons registered in 2023, according to Reutersthis year production is expected to skyrocket to 5.2 million.

Images | K-State Research and Extension (Flickr)

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