Spain's pig exports continue to grow in 2017
"The last year 2016 marked a new milestone in the Spanish meat trade, surpassing for the first time, more than 5,000 million euros in exports, and more than 2 million tons of meat and processed products sold in markets around the world," the head of ANICE said.
Mr. Serrano further explained that this data indicates that the Spanish meat industry has had a significant growth throughout the years. From reporting few foreign sales, it became the leading export sector of the Spanish agri-food industry and a power in the world market of meat products in little more than a quarter of a century.
In 2016, the Spanish meat exports accounted for a total of 2.27 million tons of meat and processed products of all kinds worth 5,562 million euros, which represented a growth of 16.7% in volume and 14.8% in value compared to 2015, with an increasingly positive trade balance, in this case, 494%.
"These global figures are largely based on the unstoppable external trajectory of the pig sector, where Spain is already one of the world's leading exporters," said Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano explained that the substantial growth of the Spanish international trade has occurred especially in pork. The opening of the Southeast Asia markets, mainly China, has ranked Spain as the third pig meat world exporter, only behind the United States and Germany.
The head of ANICE says that, still, the Spanish meat industry wants to grow further. “Nevertheless, a lot of work remains to be done as the open up of new markets and remove the exports barriers of beef and sheep meat and, in particular, processed products with high added value.”
Referring to the challenges that the Spanish meat industry will have to face in order to further develop its exports, Mr. Serrano said that promoting the export of meat products to third countries will be the main challenge in the next years.
“Spain has to promote the exportation of meat products with high added value, which are also typical of our delicatessen, specific to Spanish production and therefore with little competition from other destinations,” Mr. Serrano said.
Furthermore, in the case of the Spanish pig sector, Mr. Serrano considers that there is a need to diversify markets and to be prepared for a possible fall of the Chinese imports. While, in the case of beef and sheep meat, Mr. Serrano says that the great challenge is to open up new export markets, especially in South-East Asia, which are so important for pig meat.
“These markets are currently closed for Spanish cattle and sheep and our aim is to open them as soon as possible,” added Mr. Serrano.
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