Belgian pig industry fears consequences of Chinese duties

The pig industry in Belgium has expressed its worries after the recent Chinese announcement to impose import duties on European pork. The Belgians have been given a percentage of 62.4% – which is the highest in the range of tariffs.

For Spain, for example, the levy is only 15%. Belgium is hardest hit because allegedly pork exporters apparently would not be cooperating with the Chinese authorities’ survey. The Belgian pork association Pork.be retorted that that was simply impossible. After all, in the reference year 2023 Belgium didn’t export any pork China because of the import ban related to ASF outbreaks in Belgium’s wild boar population in 2018. That ban was still in place in 2023.

Normally, Belgium annually expects to export roughly 15,000 tons of pork and by-products to China, mainly products like ears and legs. The high duties could lead to a strong downward pressure on the pork prices in the country, the organisation said. On the day after the Chinese announcement, the Danis national reference price went down by €0.04.

Pork.be chairman Filip Fontaine said, “The new levies don’t just hit our exporters, they hit the full value chain, from farmer to abattoir and processor. For an open economy like ours, these kind of levies are extremely harmful.” He has asked the authorities in Belgium and the EU for a strong and rapid response “to repair the damage in the trade.” The earlier export ban led to a sharp decline of pig prices and, as a consequence, a severe crisis in the Belgian pig sector.

The largest farmers union Boerenbond fears a repeat of that situation. In a news statement, the union said, “The high duty is in practice a total stop on the export of pork and other pig products to China. We support the call of Pork.be for a rapid dialogue between the Belgian or European and the Chinese authorities in order to solve this problem as soon as possible. It can’t be that farmers are the victim of international trade wars.’’

Tags: outbreaks, export, pork, import duties, Belgium, ASF, pig industry