June 2, 2004

 

 

China Toughens Meat Import Restrictions

 

The Trade Negotiations Minister has confirmed that China has refused to issue permits for meat import from New Zealand.

 

Jim Sutton said New Zealand food safety officials believed the Chinese officials were coming to audit food safety and quality assurance systems that the European union accepts.

 

Instead, the Chinese inspected nine New Zealand plants and failed five - a move which could jeopardise exports worth $130 million.

 

China says New Zealand can't guarantee quality assurance and it is reorganising its import approvals procedure after publicity over a Chinese importing operation that relabelled inferior meat with false places of origin.

 

It has decided not to issue any new import permits or to rely on New Zealand Food Safety Authority's word about quality assurance. Instead, it is insisting on individually inspecting all plants exporting meat to China.

 

Sutton says he is working with industry representatives to try to find a solution to the problem before the new meat export season begins later this year.

 

He says the Chinese inspectors who recently came to New Zealand to examine its methods failed nearly half the plants they sampled - including companies which were not exporters to China. Out of nine plants that were tested, five failed.

 

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority says NZ's quality assurance system is fit for Chinese consumption.

 

NZFSA's manager for market access to Asia, Neil McLeod, isn't surprised that the five meat plants failed in the check because the authority provided a list of plants to China that included a number that were not yet exporting.

 

McLeod says Chinese officials have requested a more selected list of meat plants which are immediately able to export to China, so they can start issuing some import permits.

 

He hopes that can happen before the new export season.

 

Meanwhile, meat companies are frustrated by China's decision.

 

But Meat New Zealand chairman Jeff Grant believes the industry will get through the  impasse and that New Zealand plants are up to export standards.