Chinese company imports SPF swine from US

Guangdong province-based Guangsan Livestock Company recently imported 1,650 heads of Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) pigs from the US.

The first batch of 650 SPF pigs arrived in Guangzhou last Wednesday (Jun 11) and the remaining 1,000 heads is scheduled to be delivered on Friday (Jun 20).

Market participants said that this round of purchase is the single biggest order for SPF pigs by a Chinese company. With sophisticated health, breeding and record keeping programmes, strict herd health standards are maintained for SPF pigs to ensure superior performance.

At Guangsan's hog breeding farm, located in Guangning district, this batch of SPF hog stocks will complete their first round of production in November-December this year. Some 20 percent of the piglets will be kept for breeding while the remaining 80 percent will be sold to hog producers in other provinces.

By September 2009, the breeding farm will be able to reach its targeted production capacity of 60,000 heads of commercial hogs, of which 50,000 heads will be sold to Hong Kong.

RMB1=US$0.1451 (Jun 18)