US pork exports including pork variety meats for the month of August were up 74 percent from a year ago by volume, putting the year-to-date total up 71 percent.

The US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) in a release issued Monday said pork exports through the first eight months have already surpassed the 2007 annual total, which also stood as the previous record.

The value of the pork exports, including variety meats, for the first eight months was 64 percent from a year ago.

Japan remains the largest value market for US pork at US$992.7 million for the year - an increase of 29 percent from 2007, USMEF said. Japan's volume of 299,277 tonnes is up 25 percent from last year. August pork exports to Japan were a near record, and are expected to remain strong through the remainder of this year and in 2009, the organisation said.

Mexico continues to be a strong growth market, with January-August volume up 35 percent and value up 46 percent from a year ago. USMEF cautions however that sales for the remainder of the year "may decline due to the recent devaluation of the Mexican peso and the broader economic slowdown, with consumers substituting lower-cost food items for red meat."

Pork exports to Russia have increased 174 percent in volume and 177 percent in value this year to 141,446 tonnes valued at US$302 million. August exports to Russia set a new monthly record of 28,012 tonnes valued at US$61.9 million.

In addition, August beef plus beef variety meat exports surpassed July totals by almost 15 percent and set a new monthly record in terms of value. The record total of US$416 million exceeds the previous record of US$387 million set in June 2003 by 7.5 percent. Year-to-date, beef exports have recovered 93 percent of the value and 75 percent of the volume when compared to January-August 2003.

Mexico and Canada combined account for about 60 percent of beef export volume and 63 percent of export value in August. Beef exports to Mexico, which had set a record for both value and volume in July, set another value record of US$150.6 million despite a small decline in volume from the previous month. For January-August, beef exports to Mexico climbed 19 percent in volume and 25 percent in value over 2007. Beef exports to Canada have increased 35 percent in volume and 38 percent in value over last year to 109,717 tonnes and US$513.8 million, respectively.

Beef exports to Japan over the first eight months of 2008 totalled 51,279 tonnes, valued at US$265 million, representing an increase of 64 percent in both volume and value over last year, USMEF reported.