February 21, 2014
Japan remains the prime target market of pork exporting countries around the world particularly when it comes to value.
Despite the 7% drop in volume and 5% in value in overall US exports to Japan in 2013, the US' share of the critical chilled pork market grew as American exporters pursued this higher-value niche. And while Japan is certainly a developed market, there are segments that offer significant growth potential.
One such niche is Japan's foodservice sector, where a key opportunity exists for processed pork products. A survey that the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) took at the Japan Foodservice Association Show identified that about half of the respondents have not yet utilised any processed US pork products.
USMEF recently hosted a business development team from Nippon Ham Group (NHG), Japan's largest meat distributing group, to encourage greater utilisation of US pork through NHG's channels.
In 2013, US pork exports to Japan declined from 2012 levels, totalling just under US$1.9 billion in value. However, the strength of this high-margin market, which attracted pork products from 26 different exporting nations last year, helped drive sales and market share growth from several EU pork exporters (Spain, the Netherlands and Germany), while Mexico improved on its number four rank among exporters to Japan, increasing sales by 7% last year.
Meanwhile, Akira Amari, Japan's minister in charge of the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade talks, said that Japan may make concessions over sensitive farm products' tariffs.
Amari suggested that Japan may reduce or abolish some of the tariffs on a total of 586 items in five groups of farm products.
Tokyo and Washington began bilateral working-level talks over the TPP. The two sides remain deadlocked over how to deal with tariffs on the five groups -- rice, wheat, beef and pork, dairy products and sugar.
Around 40% of the items in the five categories have never previously been subject to tariff cuts under any free trade pacts attained by Japan, though the US-led TPP aims at scrapping all tariffs, according to government data.
