August 23, 2007

 

US to face-off with China over delisting of meat plants

 

 

Chinese and US officials will meet next week to discuss recent issues such as China's delisting of US meat plants along with its continued reluctance to accept US beef.

 

The meeting is one of a series leading to a Dec. 10 Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) forum.

 

The latest trip comes after an Aug. 8-10 meeting in Beijing in which China refused to budge on these issues. Although the gesture is appreciated, US companies doubted the latest meetings would yield anything different.

 

At issue is the use of the compound ractopamine in the US pork industry. While it is used to yield a higher proportion of lean meat in the US and a number of countries, it is banned in China. As long as China refuses to legalise its use, pork from these plants would likely to remain banned, sources said. The use of these compounds in feed up to the day of slaughter meant that it would be easily traceable in the meat.

 

While US beef has received some measure of international approval since the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) endorsed US practices to curb mad cow disease, no such endorsements appear in sight for ractopamine although meat producers such as Canada and Japan uses it.

 

Even though China has delisted only 8 US plants, more than 90 percent of US meat exports comes from just less than 20 plants and some of these plants have already been delisted. If China delists all major plants, it would have serious ramifications for the US pork industry, sources said.

 

Furthermore, exports that were destined for China from these plants would not find a market elsewhere. Such parts include pig feet, ears and organ which were only preferred by Chinese consumers. 

 

At issue is also the fact that the US had banned Chinese seafood for containing antibiotics, along with highly visible media reports of shoddy and unsafe Chinese manufacturing practices in everything from tires to toothpaste. This may have prompted China to retaliate in the form of bans on US meat and the current nitpicking with US soy on similar grounds.

 

As for poultry, industry sources said China's delisting of plants based on salmonella presence was unwarranted and possibly illegal, hinting that such disputes could land in WTO court.

 

While most US poultry undergo sanitary processes, most chickens in China were sold in the wet markets and slaughtered upon individual customer request, leading to even more unsanitary conditions. Demanding far stricter conditions from imports than what is practiced domestically is unfair treatment, which the USDA would take "very seriously", sources said.

 

The central issue was whether surface contamination of chicken with salmonella is acceptable. The US contention was that salmonella levels have been cut dramatically and it is all but impossible to eliminate the bacteria even in the most advanced poultry plants.

 

Whether this argument would be enough to convince Chinese authorities, whose egos were bruised by international concerns on its own products, remains to be seen.

 

While the bans could easily evolve into tit-for-tat bans expanding into a wider range of products between the two countries, US representatives are saying for the moment, they hope the disputes could be kept at a "technical" level rather than for it to go political.