China has agreed to resume imports of Brazilian beef following more than three months of suspension due to two atypical cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) were discovered in Brazil.
“The certification and shipment of animal protein to China will be normalized and can be resumed as of today,” Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on Wednesday. The embargo had been in effect since Sept. 4. Since then, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has reaffirmed the Brazilian status of “insignificant risk” for the disease.
China is Brazil’s top beef export customer, and Beijing said it would resume imports of Brazilian boneless beef products from cattle less than 30 months old.
“This is really good news that we have been waiting for for some time,” Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said in a radio interview. “We had already provided all the technical information and were waiting for confirmation (that exports could resume).”
She played down losses stemming from the ban, saying they were partly offset by Russia’s recent decision to authorize more Brazilian plants to export beef.
The export ban on Brazilian beef caused widespread concern in the trading community as China sources about 40% of all its beef imports from Brazil.
China’s beef imports have surged in recent years, fueled by growing demand for the meat from an increasingly affluent middle class.
