Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Pork exports face Chinese glitch

The Chinese, who have been throwing sand in the gears of Canadian exports, have claimed that some pork has lacked proper paperwork.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed to Reuters news agency that there have been paperwork issues.

The Chinese have recently complained about Canadian canola and stopped buying from the largest Canadian exporting companies.

Gary Stordy, spokesman for the Canadian Pork Council, said export shipments have continued as normal.

The CFIA is not aware of either the Chinese government or its importers causing new delays, Reuters said. 

The shipping problem involves different language and formats used between older and current export certificate forms provided by the CFIA.

The CFIA has told Canadian exporters to obtain replacement export certificates “on an urgent basis,” as both current shipments and some shipments in transit to China are affected. 

Canada is shipping more pork to China this year as African swine fever (ASF) continues to spread, already claiming about seven per cent of the nation’s pigs.

China became Canada’s largest pork export market by volume during the first two months of this year, buying 59,000 metric tons from Canada, or 23 per cent more than a year ago, Reuters said.

The article did not say whether exports to China topped exports to the United States which has traditionally been by far the largest buyer of Canadian pork.