Canada and the European Union have completed a text for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), allowing the agreement to be translated and the final legal review by governments and stakeholders to commence.

"The pork industry appreciates the government pursuing our access interests to the very end and encourages the federal and provincial goverments to move quickly to implement the agreement", said Canadian Pork Council's Chair Jean-Guy Vincent.

Canadian companies along the entire pork supply chain that provide inputs and services to the industry have a very strong interest in Canada aggressively pursuing further progress towards reducing agri-food trade barriers and achieving additional market access through bilateral trade agreements similar to CETA. Canada's pork industry exports two-thirds of its production, so diversification in export marketing opportunities is crucial. Canada currently also imports a significant volume of high value pork ribs from the EU and the pork industry sees the market opportunity for shipping hams and other pork cuts to the EU.

Canada is known globally as a supplier of safe, high quality pork. Annual Canadian pork exports amount to about 1.2 million tonnes with a value of more than US$2.75 billion dollars. Canada is the third largest pork exporter in the world. The EU which consumes over 20 million tonnes of pork per year, is the only important pork-consuming market for which the Canadian pork industry has had little access.