China has lifted restrictions on Canadian pork imports imposed because of H1N1 flu fears and the Canadian industry says it could boost exports by as much as $15 million.The Chinese deal, announced Dec. 1, came as prime minister Stephen Harper was starting his first visit to China.“This is great news for our pork producers who now have renewed access to a $50 million a year market,” Pierre Lemieux, parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, told the House of Commons. “Our government said that we would work nonstop until we resolved this issue and we have.”An industry official said the market potential actually is larger than that.Martin Rice, executive secretary of the Canadian Pork Council, said Canadian exports now are worth $45 million.“I think this could increase it to $55 million or even $60 million,” he said in a Dec. 2 interview from Brussels, Belgium, where he was discussing hog issues in Canada-European Union free trade talks. “So this is good news.”Rice noted that China also had lifted imports restrictions on product from the EU and the United States.China, a major pork importer, was one of many countries to impose import restrictions in the belief that because some call it swine flu, H1N1 can be carried and contracted from pigs and pork.Rice said China continues to restrict imports of Canadian pigs treated with a growth hormone.He said the industry hopes that Harper will raise that issue when he is in China. The prime minister’s office invited Jacques Pomerleau, executive director of Canada Pork International to join the entourage in China but he already was in Geneva at a World Trade Organization ministerial meeting.Rice said the Chinese may have agreed to lift the H1N1 restrictions in advance of Harper’s visit “to signal that they want the visit to be productive.”
Canadian pigs gain access to China
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