The Chinese market, as is known, presented in recent months a complicated situation, with a very strong drop in the values paid by importers and a significant volume of meat accumulated in chambers and warehouses.
Despite all this, during June the Asian giant imported 234 thousand tons of beef1.7% more than in the same month last year.
Of the volume purchased, 89 thousand tons, or 38%, came from Brazil, while some 49 thousand tons (21%) originated in Argentina. Uruguay, for its part, placed some 22,000 tons in June (9% of the total), adding the three Mercosur countries to 69% of Chinese imports.
It should be noted that heBrazilian beef averaged US$5,400 a ton, while that of Uruguay US$ 4,197 per ton and that of Argentina US$ 4,485 per ton.
Of the total imported by China, only 2.7% were chilled cuts, Australia standing out in this line, which provides 52% of the chilled meat at an average price per ton of US$ 10,753 per ton.
It should be noted that most of the operators that we have consulted assure us that China pays better –with the same cut and preparation– meat from Uruguay or Brazil, in relation to Argentine meat.
An international broker who was in Buenos Aires a few weeks ago assured us that Chinese importers will They give Uruguayan refrigerators a price bonus, because they have been working with them for a longer time and they also find them more serious and reliable in the provision of meat.
“Argentinians always have problems: when the refrigerators do not have prohibitions or government quotas or withholdings, they sell incomplete sets of cuts, or suffer from some arbitrariness of the authorities. In addition, there are some informal operators that do not comply with the agreement. All this is expressed in a price premium in favor of meat originating from Uruguay”, he observed.
Asia, an impulse buyer
Just 14 years ago, in 2009, beef imports from China, Hong Kong and Vietnam were practically irrelevant, while those from Japan and South Korea totaled some 1.012 million tons.
In 2023, This same group of Asian countries buy 5.27 million tons, registering imports a 421% increase.
Acquisitions from “greater China” (Hong Kong, Vietnam and China) lead the Asian ranking, with 3.9 million tons. This calculation of Asian purchases does not include Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, whose growth has been surprising everyone.
In the same period, imports from the European Union and the United States, the two most important markets in the “Atlantic circuit”, grew by only 19%, going from 1.6 million tons to 1.92 million tons.
The traditional import markets of the Atlantic are languishing or growing very little; while in Asia there is an explosive increase in beef consumption, and above all, in imports.
In addition, both the United States and the European Union are major exporters of beef, competing with our meats.
Asian markets demand industrial-type meat, but over time they have become the main markets for high-priced chilled cuts, as is the case in Korea and Japan.
China imports a small volume of chilled cuts, mostly from Australia and the United States, which are intensely marbling cuts. Today, high-quality grass-fed cuts can be sold in Asian markets, but the Asian market clearly prefers feedlot meat, imposed by the Americans and Australians. “The taste of consumers has been colonized.”
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2023-08-13 12:52:22
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