November 1, 2012
China can look forward to importing pork from Mexico in the future, after seven years of negotiation on pork.
According to Mexico's secretary of agriculture, livestock, fisheries and food, Francisco Javier Mayorga, all of the technical groundwork has been laid, and only final Chinese sanitary certification is required to allow the exports to proceed.
Both countries are now also hoping to sign a bilateral accord on technical and scientific co-operation in fisheries and agriculture, with Mexico seeking to benefit from Chinese experience in exotic foods such as jellyfish and sea cucumbers. Local production of these delicacies would supply the burgeoning Chinese restaurant industry in Mexico.
Mayorga's visit to China is a practical result of the rapidly emerging refocus towards Asia in trade relations by Mexico and many other Latin American economies, with the aim of reducing the country's cyclical dependence on the US economy. Success in Asia for Mexico has already come with market penetration in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and the policy of increased engagement with Asia will blossom further once Mexican president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, takes power on December. Yet, the growing Mexican-Chinese trade relationship could well be marked as much by volatility as co-operation, given that the rising cost of labour in China could see a greater number of businesses considering Mexico as a location for cheap production. In that sense, these two emerging economies could well become strategic competitors in the longer term.
