This year China beat Japan as world’s largest pork importer. Contrary to other agricultural imports, which are proving weak in 2016 thus far, China’s meat imports are reaching record levels in 2016 because of shortages in local production.
Local meat production has been struggling to expand for several years and China has been recording weaker output growth than its global and Asian counterparts.
Output is forecast to remain well below consumption levels in 2017. Local production is under pressure due to a myriad of factors including increased production costs (beef), stricter production regulations (pork) and the import ban on poultry grandparent stocks.
Production is expected remain well below consumption, so it is likely that imports of pork will either remain steady or increase.