Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy Generator

THE LOVE TRIANGLE

If countries were people this could have been a love triangle...

For many years the Chinese market has been inaccessible to exporters of Fetal Bovine Serum from USA and Brazil.

Back in 2003 when the first BSE case in the US was recorded China gave an alarming response and closed its borders for US beef and other bovine by-products.
Similarly, Brazil got on the Chinese No-Go list in 2012 after an atypical BSE case was recorded in the country.

USA were declared by the OIE a country with negligible BSE risk in 2013. Since that time US industry leaders had been trying to re-open the Chinese for US beef. The current Chinese market estimate is worth 2.6 billion to the US industry.

In the same time, Brazil had been intensely negotiating with China for re-opening the market to Brazilian beef products. And they succeeded.
In summer 2014 China re-opened its markets for Brazilian beef (Related story). Short time before that happened, Chinese officials from AQSIQ had announced that they adopt the OIE BSE rules (check the link).

It looked just like a small step to open the market also for blood products - like Fetal Bovine Serum - from Brazil into China. While the US meat industry was still negotiating with the Chinese officials, Brazil had gained a huge advantage. The country had a lot of meat, a lot of serum and attractive low prices.

When China restricted also the import of bovine blood products from New Zealand and Australia in 2014 it seemed that nobody could compete with Brazil any more. Even USA accepted the constantly growing strength of Brazil and opened its borders for Brazilian fresh meat.

In the past two years it looked like China had lost interest in the negotiations with the US. Little happened, even the planned import legislation change concerning import of bovine blood products was not completed as promised and expected. Brazil looked like the partner able to cover almost all needs of China – for meat and blood products.

But then the unexpected happened. JBS – Brazil’s biggest meat processor and protégé of the Brazilian government – got into the news. Mid March 2017 Brazil’s police started investigating JBS for selling meat unfit for human consumption. Further – and ongoing – investigation revealed bribery, illegal practices, insider trading. The story threw a dark shadow of doubt over the relationship between Brazil and China. There was an obvious lack of control from the side of the Brazilian veterinary health authorities. Almost immediately the Chinese AQSIQ intensified talks with the US. Finally the good news came – Mid July the Chinese market will officially re-open for US beef. The border opening for other bovine sourced by-products from the US can be expected soon.

After many years of intense negotiations China turned back to its old partner – the US. 

Brazil has lost largely its status. The US stopped further imports of Brazilian fresh meat a few days ago. New Zealand announced that it would be soon able to resume imports of bovine products into China very soon. But that’s already another story...

26.06.2017 10:32