January 2, 2009
 

Challenges loom ahead of Mexico and US meat trade

Mexican meat imports from 20 US plants resumed in full on Tuesday (Dec 30), but despite most problems over the trade dispute being resolved, a number of challenges remain ahead for the Mexico-US meat trade, a top Mexican industry official said.

 

Eugenio Salinas, chairman of the Mexican Meat Council, said that new packaging regulations implemented by Mexico earlier this year had been at the root of the suspension of the imports.

 

He said Mexico used to accept bulk meat shipments in cargoes of up to 1 tonne, but recently changed that to 50 kilogrammes, and many US plants have yet to correct it, leading to the main violation behind the import ban.

 

Salinas said routine inspections of the 36 US meat plants in question about two months ago had led to the discovery of the violation, mostly because of the bulk restrictions, but also because of paperwork irregularities, and in some isolated cases there had been sanitary violations.

 

"The worst part of this problem is that most of these plants already had submitted the paperwork showing they had corrected this to the US Department of Agriculture but it was the USDA that had failed to forward the documentation to the Mexican authorities," Salinas said.

 

Exports were in the end banned from 30 of the 36 plants inspected, according to the USDA.

 

He said the 20 plants that have been cleared Monday (Dec 29) and had resumed exports to Mexico were the plants that already had corrected the violations and submitted documentation to the USDA.

 

Five more plants were cleared Tuesday, while two more plants were in the process of being cleared, trade sources said in Washington.

 

Salinas said although the dispute led to interruptions of meat imports for less than a week, the impact would have been serious if it had not been resolved for most of the affected plants so quickly.

 

"To the industry, and we represent mostly meat processors and importers, this is one of the most important periods of the year with the holiday season, so the impact would have been really serious if it had not been resolved before New Year," said Salinas.

 

Salinas said the new regulations, which Mexico imposed in a bid to improve sanitary regulations and make food safety inspections easier, were complicating the bilateral trade and the Mexican Meat Council was scheduled to start talks with Mexican authorities about this on January 5.

 

"The bulk shipments have come in packages of up to 1 tonne and we understand that it really makes it difficult for the authorities to undertake the inspections in cargoes this large, especially since it's all shipped frozen. But there has to be a system that can work better for both parts, because if all the imports have to be repacked to 50 kilogrammes only, it will add 12-15 percent to the cost for the export process alone," he said.