Meat sector has the greatest potential to raise sales in the country to China, says CBEC

The meat sector (bovine, chicken and pigs) is what presents the greatest potential to stimulate sales to the Chinese market. According to André Soares, CEO of the Brazil-China Business Council (CBBC) and one of the authors of the study "trade and investment opportunities in China for Selected sectors", in beef, for example, it is possible to double the bilateral trade value between the two countries. "The problem is that we have to overcome the bureaucratic issue of enabling units able to export to the country, in addition to increasing the distribution partnerships," he said.
"We believe China's potential in leveraging our sales but have great difficulty accessing this market with quality," said the Governmental Relations Director of JBS Wilson Mello Neto. He explained that Brazil is getting access to China via Hong Kong, even with lower prices than China is able to pay.
The Executive Director of the Brazilian Association of Meat exporters (Abiec), Fernando Sampaio, said that sales of beef to China are down since 2012, on account of an atypical case of mad cow disease in the country.
"The official embargo doesn't exist anymore, but we're not managing to sell to the country. We are at the stage of the negotiation of a new Protocol/health certificate to resume exports, "he said. At the time of the embargo, the Brazil sold 17 thousand tons of beef to the country. In 2014, 400 thousand tons were shipped to Hong Kong.
"We had a record foreign exchange revenue of $ 7.2 billion in foreign sales of beef. A quarter of that went to Hong Kong, "he added Sa.
In the CBBC survey done in conjunction with Apex-Brazil, in addition to beef, have potential sales to the market, chicken meat and pork, orange juice and other juices, coffee, cellulose, soy and footwear. "Pork also has great potential, due to the increase in per-capita income of Chinese. Today China imports only 2 percent of what is consumed, but it puts it as the biggest world importer of protein, "said the Manager of the Apex-Brazil, Sophia Choi.