CHICAGO/WASHINGTON D.C. (Reuters) — “Huge amounts” of American beef are bypassing China’s import bans, a top U.S. trade official said last week, even as the Chinese government cracks down on agricultural smuggling.
The meat enters through Hong Kong, deputy U.S. trade representative Robert Holleyman said.
U.S. beef is currently barred from mainland China because of previous cases of BSE. U.S. trade officials have been trying to get China to lift the ban, but with little success.
Holleyman said U.S. officials had told their Chinese counterparts: “You need an agreement like Hong Kong. And that’s what we have been negotiating.”
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Trade officials said it’s not known how much U.S. beef is being transshipped through Hong Kong into China, but the volume that comes in from the United States is more than all the beef consumed in Hong Kong.
The U.S. exported more than 154,500 tonnes of beef and beef products to Hong Kong last year, up nearly 19 percent over the previous year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Industry sources estimated last year that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of beef from countries such as Brazil and India are smuggled into China through Hong Kong and Vietnam.
