For the first time in its history, Argentina will export pork to China

The President of the Nation, Mauricio Macri, and the Secretary of the Government of Agri-Food, Luis Miguel Etchevehere, announced at the opening ceremony of the Chinese pork market visit to the fridge "La Pompeya", located in the city of Buenos Aires of Marcos Paz, one of the largest in the country. The Liaison Committee leaders participated in the tour: Daniel Pelegrina, President of Sociedad Rural Argentina; Carlos Achetoni, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation; Dardo Chiesa, president of Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas, and Daniel Kindebaluc, secretary of Coninagro.

Last week, during his visit to China, Secretary Etchevehere signed the sanitary protocol authorizing the entry of pork into the Asian giant. In this way, a long negotiation phase was concluded, with the participation of officials from the agri-food industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Service of Health and Food Quality (SENASA).

The first three slaughterhouses exporting pork were also allowed: La Pompeya, Campo Austral and Paladini.
For the holder of Agroindustria, the signing of this protocol "represents a unique opportunity for local hog producers, who see China as a window of growth because this country is one of the largest consumers and importers in the world."

According to data provided by Agroindustria, in the first two months of this year, pork complex exports increased by 41% In the same period of 2018, and between 2015 and 2018, pork exports increased by 555% in Argentina. In addition, slaughterings in the first three months amounted to 1,640,399 head, production was put in March this year to 50,110 tonnes, and finally domestic consumption increased by 3.8% over the last two months. first months of 2019 and reached 14.07 kg / inhabitant / year.

The president of the Argentine Rural Society, Daniel Pelegrina, stressed that the announcements made by the national government "reinforced the good road of agricultural policy", adding that "the export route reinforces that of increased production. way to generate work and development in the interior of Argentina ".

On the other hand, Chinese customs has approved the authorization of 22 beef and poultry exporting establishments, which will significantly contribute to the increase of meat exports. According to Etchevehere, "in a few years, frozen beef has become the second most exported agro-industrial product to China, with a value of 832 million USD last year".

In turn, Luis Miguel Etchevehere signed a letter with the Chinese authorities Memorandum of Understanding that will simplify future approvals for establishments interested in exporting and allow for predictability, which covers beef, poultry, sheep and, from now on, pork. With the signing of this memorandum, China for the first time with a foreign country, an agreement of these characteristics, which highlights the relationship of mutual trust to allow the Senasa of our country to be the entity that approves and allows exporting facilities directly.

Finally, an agreement has been signed with China Memorandum of Understanding for Cooperation on Pesticides between the two countries, with the aim of providing a legal framework to enhance the exchange of information between SENASA and ICAMA (Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals) for the purpose of control and enforcement. 39, registration of the marketing of these products.

During the Asian giant's tour with the Secretary of State at Agroindustry, topics related to biotechnology, seed production and foot-and-mouth vaccines were badyzed, and the official spoke at from a seminar on the interest of Argentina to specify exports as quickly as possible. Soybean meal is destined for China, one of the main export products accounting for 68% of the soybean complex, for a total value of $ 9,181 million and equivalent to 24,200,000 tonnes.

"Argentina continues its process of intelligent integration in the world highlighting the excellent cooperative relationship we have with the Chinese authorities, which generates increased trust, a better business climate and allows us therefore to obtain concrete results to continue strengthening our agro-industrial exports, "said Etchevehere during his visit to the Marcos Paz refrigerator.

In 2018, total exports to China amounted to USD 3,478 million, of which more than 86% is in the agribusiness sector. Argentina ranks 13th among agrifood suppliers in China. The main products exported are: soybean, with 42% of total exported agro-industrial exports; frozen boneless beef, 28%; shrimp and prawns, 11 percent.

In a recent interview with InfobaeArgentina's ambbadador to China, Diego Guelar, highlighted the work done with the Agri-Food Secretariat and said: "We are working very well and we are working in a team with the Secretary of Agri-Food. Etchevehere has understood the market well. He has traveled many times to work and not to travel, and from all of this we are getting results because he really understood the importance of China. "

On trade relations between the two countries, Guelar said the pending chapter was the ability of Argentina to offer value-added products. "From the embbady, ​​we have proposed and developed a proposal that is currently fully operational, namely five distribution centers or distribution centers with Chinese companies, generating many opportunities," said Guelar.

In this way seeks to facilitate the access of Argentine companies to logistics centers they can reduce the delivery time of their products and improve the control of their activities abroad. Among the basic services include the receipt of goods, customs clearance, inspection, customs declaration, transportation, loading and unloading of the container, the entry and exit into the warehouse and inventory management. As in China, the online channel is very powerful, these providers also have tools such as applications, websites and social networking.

In the midst of a very complex economic and political scenario in our country, Argentina's ambbadador to China said: "China's attitude has been an absolute reaffirmation of support for the Argentina, investments are underway and are developing .. we are as if we were in the best of all worlds, the Chinese decision to understand the integral strategic partnership is absolute ".

In addition, in the face of the upcoming elections, Guelar said: "I think voters will vote again for the government of Mauricio Macri, it is a challenge for the administration of change to deal with this electoral process. The president of the nation recognizes them, I do not think people want to go back. "

On the other hand, the ambbadador praised the figure of the president of the nation, "is of extraordinary honesty, has the best intentions in the world and has had the humility to admit that he was wrong, that he had sinned by naivety problems of the country.The great challenge remains to the Argentine society as a whole: to make its contribution to the construction of a large country ".