Rabobank analyst predicts Chinese dairy demand to lift after two-year hiatus
Chinese demand for dairy products is continuing to grow but not at the breakneck pace of a decade and more ago, Rabobank analyst Sandy Chen says.
Rosy projections for the growth of the Chinese infant formula market have proven to be wide of the mark. Two years ago Euromonitor forecast that with the loosening of the one-child policy, sales of infant formula would jump from US$19b to more than US$50b by 2020.
Shanghai-based Chen, in New Zealand this week to provide a first-hand insight into China’s appetite for dairy imports, said people were reluctant to have more than one child because of the perceived high cost of bringing up children.
Beingmate chairman Wang Zhentai, Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings, former Prime Minister John Key and chairman of China Dairy Industry Association Song Kungang. Fonterra has made a hefty investment in dairy marketing company Beingmate.
“Euromonitor was pretty optimistic but they have revised down their projection sizably, it’s still a growing market but not at the same rate – about 8-9 per cent a year, more in line with what we were looking at.”
Two years ago Fonterra decided to attempt to cash in on the infant formula market by investing $700 million for an 18.8 per cent stake in Chinese company Beingmate. So far no product has been sold as a result of the deal.
In addition, after criticism over the focus on infant formula, the Chinese government has promoted breast feeding as healthier, and parents have agreed.
Chen said after a two-year hiatus, demand for imported dairy products was lifting, partly because Chinese production had fallen, although it was difficult to see transparency in the statistics.
In the early 2000s growth of imported products had been as high as 20 per cent, but today that was down to 4-5 per cent, following the melamine scandal of 2008.
Last year domestic milk production fell by 4 per cent, or 1.5 billion fewer litres than the year before. The three leading dairy provinces – Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Henan, accounting for 43 per cent of national production – recorded a drop of 3 per cent.
“Since 2008 production has been stagnant, there has been a shift in farming structure with more large scale dairy farms, and a strong exit of small farmers. There is also a problem of summer heat stress in cows which impacts production.”
As a result, demand would grow faster than domestic production, offering opportunities to exporters. Chen predicted that, with a low level of inventory, China would import more dairy products in the second half of this year.
He said consumer confidence in New Zealand products remained positive, and the country was profiting from word-of-mouth marketing from increasing numbers of Chinese tourists.
New forms of marketing such as e-commerce were becoming popular, and allied to the growth in courier services, products could be sold into second and third tier cities.
New Zealand had gradually shifted to more value add products such as cheese and butter for the food service business, where it was “pretty dominant” in those categories.
Chen cautioned New Zealand about becoming too dependent on China and pointed to countries in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam and Indonesia which were showing more rapid growth and which it should focus on.
Chen is Rabobank’s senior dairy and beverages analyst for Asia, and has been responsible for interpreting the latest trends since 2013. He has a background as an equity analyst.
Source: NZFarmer. Date: 2017-07-06
Farmers in China Wrestle With Drought
The corn has grown to only half its normal height on Yan Shuqin’s ranch in the hills of Inner Mongolia this year, as a swath of northern China suffers its worst drought in 60 years.
The ruddy-faced woman said that even before the rains stopped, the groundwater in her region had been sinking, from 20 meters (about 70 feet) below the surface just a few years ago to as much as 80 meters (260 feet) this past summer. While she can still eat and sell the corn, lettuce and other vegetables on her farm, the yield has shrunk.
“If the grass doesn’t grow and the vegetables die off, who’s going to be able to live here?” Yan asked outside her family’s spotless two-room house. “My mother and her mother lived here. My family has always lived here. What are my children going to do?”
After a season of record-breaking drought across China, groundwater levels have hit historic lows this year in northeast and central parts of China where hundreds of millions of people live. Reservoirs grew so dry in agricultural Henan province that the city of Pingdingshan closed car washes and bathhouses and extracted water from puddles.
But this is no one-time emergency. Farmers like Yan and water-hungry industries have been wrestling with a long-term water crisis that has dried up more than half the country’s 50,000 significant rivers and left hundreds of cities facing what the government classifies as a “serious scarcity” of water.
Half a billion Chinese live in a handful of provinces, largely in the northeast, where coal-fired power plants, steel foundries and other water-gulping industries already burden reservoirs and aquifers. Widespread chemical runoff and other pollution have contaminated 60 percent of the country’s groundwater.
The country’s climate is also warming, particular in its populous northeast where rain levels have fallen, according to a 2011 study by Chinese, French and British researchers. Meanwhile, the country’s south has seen its rainfall concentrated in shorter bursts, which has made it harder to predict water supplies.
As a result, per capita water availability in the megacities of Beijing and Shanghai as well as their surrounding provinces equals that of dry Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and Jordan, said Feng Hu, a water analyst with the Hong Kong-based research group China Water Risk. By comparison, the average U.S. household has access to nearly five times more available water than Chinese households do.
“If we continue with our business-as-usual model, the demand will exceed supply by 2030,” Feng said in a lecture in Beijing last month. “The water crisis is a real risk.”
Already, Chinese farmers have lost an estimated $1.2 billion this year due to drought, while China has slowed plans to tap its vast deposits of shale gas, which sit in areas with the greatest scarcity. The water crisis is also hitting China’s main energy source, coal, which requires large amounts of water to extract and convert into power.
Heavy rains over the past week helped lift some of the immediate crisis in central China, flooding cities that just days earlier had been struggling to keep taps flowing. But fields remain bone-dry and parched in Inner Mongolia and other northern regions.
In response to the country’s water woes, Chinese authorities have called for solutions that include relying more on imports for foods that require lots of water to produce, such as grains and vegetable oils.
They also are betting on more than 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) of canal that when completed will move trillions of gallons of water from the rivers of China’s south to its dry north. One branch of the canal leading straight to Beijing is expected to be done this fall.
Many water experts remain skeptical about the project, however, with some warning it could wreak havoc on southern aquifers and watersheds.
But Fuqiang Yang, a senior adviser with the U.S.-based National Resources Defense Council, said the canal could relieve water shortages in some northern cities such as Beijing, if launched with conservation and water reuse measures. Without the canals, metropolitan Beijing only has enough water for 15 million people, not the 20 million who now live there, he said.
“This has always been a regional problem,” Yang said. “Groundwater is going down very quickly … These areas will not be able to solve the problems themselves. So this canal will provide some important help there.”
But Feng said Chinese authorities also need to encourage conservation by ending its subsidization of water consumption by all users, from households to farmers to industries. The average price of residential water in Beijing, for example, is a fifth of that in New York. And although China’s per capita consumption rate still falls below the global average, it is rising steadily as the country’s economy expands.
Industry and agriculture make up 85 percent of China’s water consumption.
“For something so scarce, water in China is not priced at the level it should be,” Feng said.
The canals still won’t help farmers in remote regions such as far western Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia where the drought has hit the hardest. Despite the arid conditions there, China’s government actually hopes to stimulate more water-dependent industries such as coal-fired energy production that will compete with farmers for meager resources.
In Hexingten county in Inner Mongolia, people say they’ve already seen radical climate shifts. Last winter went by without any significant snows to replenish streams and groundwater, followed by a drought-plagued spring and summer.
A 40-year-old farmer in Hexingten who would only identify himself by his family name of Bao said everyone there is wondering how long they can survive in these grasslands.
“The environment was good before,” Bao said. “The grasses grew so tall. Now, it doesn’t even rain anymore.”
Source: Associated Press Date: 2017-06-28
China’s youth create a stir in pork industry
China’s frozen dumpling makers are finding a quick route to winning new sales – increase the vegetable content and cut down on the meat.
This departure from traditional pork-rich dumplings is a hit with busy, young urbanites trying to reduce fat in their diets often heavy in fast food.
“They [consumers] like trying new healthy products once a week or fortnight. It’s a big trend for Chinese mainland consumers, especially those aged 20 to 35,” said Ellis Wang, Shanghai-based marketing manager at US food giant General Mills, which owns top dumpling brand, Wanchai Ferry.
For pig farmers in China and abroad, this is a difficult trend to stomach. The producers and other market experts originally expected pig meat market growth to continue until at least 2026.
In the wake of this prediction, Chinese hog farmers have been on a building spree, constructing huge modern farms to capture a bigger share of the world’s largest pork market, while leading overseas producers have been changing the way they raise their pigs in order to meet Chinese imports standards. Some have, for example, stopped using growth hormones, which are banned in China.
Despite recent changes, China still consumes significantly more meat than any other country. People here will eat about 74 million tons of pork, beef and poultry this year, around twice as much as the US, according to US agriculture department estimates. More than half of this number constitutes pork consumption. For foreign producers, this has caused a big growth in the market, especially for Western-style packaged meats.
But pork demand has recently hit a wall, well ahead of most official forecasts. Sales of pork have now fallen for the past three years, according to data from London-based research firm Euromonitor International.
Last year, they hit three-year lows of 40.85 million tons from 42.49 million tons in 2014. Euromonitor predicts they will fall slightly in 2017.
In China, hog prices have come down approximately 25 percent since January, even though official numbers suggest supply is lower compared with last year.
Less meat is better?
Since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970s, pork demand expanded by an average of 5.7 percent every year until 2014. This was due to the booming economy allowing hundreds of millions of people to afford to eat meat more often.
Now, growing concerns about obesity and heart health have shaped a variety of shopping habits, fueling sales of everything from avocados to fruit juices and sportswear.
“Market demand remains very weak. I think one factor behind this is people believe less meat is healthier. This is a new trend,” said Pan Chenjun, executive director of food and agriculture research at Rabobank in Hong Kong.
Sales of vegetable-only dumplings grew 30 percent last year, compared with around 7 percent for all frozen dumplings, data from global marketing research firm Nielsen also shows.
“Demand for vegetable products keeps rising, giving us large room for growth,” said Zhou Wei, product manager at No.2 dumpling producer Synear Food.
Guangzhou-based Harmony Catering says that for the approximate 1 million employees eating at its 300 canteens every day, concern over health has become the core reason for reduced servings of meat.
Harmony’s chief clientele – that is, staff members from technology companies, banks and oil majors – are consuming about 10 percent less meat today than they did five years ago, whereas they are consuming around 10 percent more green vegetables, according to Harmony’s vice president Li Huang.
“This is mainly because of media messages, the concept of health has entered popular consciousness [through mainstream communication channels],” he said.
For now, it’s mostly urban and white-collar workers paying closer attention to their diets. There’s been, for example, a sharp rise in vegetarian food stations at university campuses.
Besides, the government wants a nationwide shift in eating habits.
Childhood obesity in China is rocketing, and the country also faces an epidemic of heart disease, Harvard researchers warned last year. They blamed the growing consumption of red meat and high salt intake for these problems.
In April, the health ministry kicked off its second 10-year healthy lifestyle campaign, urging citizens to consume less fat, salt and sugar and instead, aim for a ‘healthy diet, healthy weight and healthy bones’.
By 2030, China wants to see a noticeable increase in nutritional awareness, a 20 percent cut in the per capita consumption of salt and slower growth in the rate of obesity, according to a recently published “Healthy China 2030” pamphlet.
Meeting healthy demands
Some companies have been urgently changing the mix of products they sell by going for higher-margin meats rather than volumes. Sales of traditionally less popular lamb and beef have also been increasing.
Li of Harmony Catering says, although servings of pork are down, the firm is including more beef and lamb in meals for diet diversity purposes.
“People usually eat lean beef or lamb, like beef brisket, while pork has both fatty and lean parts, like in ‘hong shao rou’,” said Beijing-based nutritionist Chen Zhikun, referring to the widely consumed braised pork dish.
China’s top pork producer, WH Group, has been going up market by selling more expensive, Western-style products in China, such as sausages and ham. Such products are commonly imported from Smithfield, the largest US pork producer, which was acquired by WH in 2013.
Some producers say that the recent drop in pork consumption can also be partly explained by sharply lower output. A prolonged period of losses during 2013 to 2015 forced farmers to cull millions of hogs, hitting supply and sending pork prices to record levels in 2016.
But for a growing portion of Chinese consumers, price tags on food items are becoming less and less important. A spate of safety scandals in recent years, many of which were related to meat, has made urban Chinese highly sensitive to food quality.
More than 80 percent of people in China surveyed by Nielsen last year said they were willing to pay more for foods without undesirable ingredients, much higher than the global average, which is 68 percent.
“China is in a new stage where consumption of pork and other foods is no longer a simple matter of ‘more is better’,” said Fred Gale, senior economist at the US agriculture department.
Source: Global Times Date: 2017-06-29
Norne: Sooner or later Chinese importers will look to Norway salmon M&A
With the Chinese market now open once again to Norwegian salmon sales, investment bank Norne Securities believes it is only a matter of time before importers start looking at mergers and acquisitions to secure supply.
One hundred Norwegian seafood exporters recently met with 300 importers in China, to mark the opening of seafood imports from Norway again. The Norway’s Seafood Council is targeting 156,000 metric tons of salmon exports to China by 2025; one of every seven salmon farmed in Norway now, Norne notes.
“Sooner or later some of China’s seafood importers are likely to differentiate from competitors at home to go beyond contracts to secure supplies,” said analysts Karl Johan Molnes and Rytis Mikelionis.
Chinese firms may do this either with a full acquisition, or via a 50/50 joint venture; there is precedent for both, set by Japan when it too wished to secure supply.
In 2014 Mitsubishi Corporation took over Cermaq, for approximately NOK 8.880 billion ($1.4bn). More recently, Norne noted, Japan’s Yokohama Reito and Norway’s Hofseth International paired up to buy a trout farmer, Fjordlaks Aqua.
“China has money, but it does not have Japan’s experience that has been active along the Norwegian coast sourcing seafood, teaching Norwegians how to treat and package shrimps, mackerel and salmon since the early 1980s,” Norne suggested.
Bakkafrost’s CEO, according to Norne, believes that only Norway can build a market in China.
From an investment point of view, Norne suggested holding onto shares in those companies the shareholder believes could be acquired; the rest, it said, should be sold.
“Strip away the biomass adjustment and focus on the estimated adjusted earnings per share from abnormal high prices and high costs,” the bank wrote.
“The valuation of the sector has been around PER [price-earnings ratio] 10 on adjusted consensus numbers since after the companies starting making significant profits in 2014. Value investors recognize that there is now more downside than upside in the earnings level, and have thus already sold their shares.”
The table below shows how certain listed companies are expected to perform regarding enterprise value/ earning before interest and tax, and dividend yield.
“Because of the high correlation between salmon prices and salmon stocks the sector is a ‘trading sell’ until salmon prices are lifted above NOK 60 [per kilogram] per week around the start of 4Q17.”
China market has bounced share prices back.
The market has, so far in Q1 2017, been worried about the salmon sector, shown by falling share prices in the listed Norwegian salmon farmers.
This has mainly been caused by an early downward readjustment of forward prices.
However, falling share prices was halted by the announcement in early April that China would open to Norwegian seafood imports. “Both salmon prices and salmon stocks have rebounded sharply on the news in April and May,” Norne added.
The bank descried the recent meeting between Norwegian exporters and Chinese importers as impressive, but suggested “short term progress indicated might be slower than needed to lend much support to salmon prices this year”.
“The bullish view: if the salmon prices rapidly rebound from the low 50’s and stay above NOK 60/kg before the end of 3Q17, we are likely to upgrade our recommendations yet again to ‘trading buy’ into 2018.”
“The bearish view: the longer time it takes for salmon prices to get back up to NOK 60/kg in 2H17 the more earnings per share estimates will have to come down, and stocks will fall even more than our target prices.”
Source: undercurrentnews.com Date: 2017-06-29
ChemChina completes $43 billion takeover of Syngenta
It has recently been revealed that ChemChina’s $43 billion takeover of Swiss Company Syngenta has now been officially completed.
ChemChina originally placed its bid on the Swiss company in early 2016, following on from two failed bids by Monsanto in the previous year. Since then, the transaction has had to receive approval from the relevant competition authorities.
As the transaction with the Chinese state-owned company was confirmed, Syngenta outlined its new ambitions and priorities going forward.
The company aims to profitably grow market share through organic growth and collaborations, and is considering targeted acquisitions – with a focus on seeds.
The goal is to strengthen the company’s leadership position in crop protection and to become an ambitious number three in seeds, Syngenta added.
It is hoped that further expansion in emerging markets, notably China, will be one of the key drivers of the next phase of growth for the company.
The stepping up of digital agriculture offers, as well as ongoing investment in new technologies to increase crop yields – while reducing CO2 emissions and preserving water resources are also expected to play a major role.
The Chairman of ChemChina, Ren Jianxin, reaffirmed that the Swiss company’s operational independence will be maintained and that the existing management team will continue to run the business.
“Together with its board, management and all its employees, we will work for the benefit of growers, to enhance food security and fight famine around the world – based on principles of technological leadership, environmental safety and sustainability,” he said.
A Historic Transaction
Meanwhile, the transaction has been described as historic by the Vice Chairman of Syngenta and Lead Independent Director, Michel Demare, for many reasons.
“Not only is it the largest acquisition ever made by a Chinese company, but also it is a deal focused on growth. All our stakeholders are benefiting from this change of ownership.
“Syngenta will continue to be headquartered and to pay taxes in Switzerland, with major manufacturing and R&D (Research and Development) sites in the country.
“Syngenta remains a standalone company, with a new owner which has a long-term visionfor our industry and will invest accordingly,” Demare said.
The company is set to maintain the “highest corporate governance standards” with four independent directors on the board. Together, ChemChina and Syngenta will make a significant contribution to global food security, he added.
‘A Vital Role In The Food Chain’
Syngenta plays a vital role in the food chain to safely feed the world and take care of the planet, the company’s CEO, Erik Fyrwald, explained.
“With ChemChina we have a stable new owner which will help us to achieve this ambition. At the same time we will sustain our focus on productivity and on improving the customer experience.
“We are excited by the global prospects and particularly those in China – where we will utilise and build on our technology and know-how to promote the highest agriculture, food safety and environmental standards, as well as to increase productivity,” Fyrwald concluded.
Source: Agriland.com Date: 2017-06-29
China’s Orchids bloom for export boom
Foshan Dingliang aims to be a key player after sending its first batch of seedlings to the competitive US marketplace.
Weng Minqiang has to get the temperature and humidity just right for his butterfly orchid seedlings.
Environmental conditions inside his greenhouse complex in Foshan’s Shunde district of Guangdong province are crucial to meet export regulations in the United States.
“It is a very precise procedure,” said Weng, general manager of Foshan Dingliang Phalaenopsis Industry Development Co Ltd, a company he set up. “Export rules are demanding.”
This will be his first US order, a batch of 10,000 seedlings, worth $30,000.
To mark the occasion, Weng even held a special ceremony in Shunde district on June 21.
“The butterfly orchids were given the green light by United States authorities after they passed a strict inspection and went through a quarantine period to meet the import standards required,” he said.
The seedlings will be packed in a container and will travel by sea. It will be the first shipment from a Chinese company and Weng confessed he was nervous.
“I hope it is a good beginning,” he said.
Still, Weng is confident that this is just the start of an incredible journey, which will see other Chinese horticultural nurseries from the region break into the US market.
After all, he has a track record of success. Last month, his company Dingliang Biological Technology exported 1,000 butterfly orchid plants, worth about $3,000, to Canada.
It was a crucial, first step. But the big prize is the US as annual imports of butterfly orchids to the biggest economy in the world is 50 million, with 23 million seedlings, which are worth between $46 million and $115 million depending on their size.
“Before we moved into the market only the province of Taiwan sold medium butterfly orchid seedlings to the US,” Weng said.
But now his company along with other Guangdong growers hope to export more than 1,000 containers, holding at least 20 million seedlings, worldwide in the years ahead.
His plans might sound ambitious, but the rewards outweigh the risks, although Weng declined to reveal detailed financial figures such as sales and revenue.
Butterfly orchid seedlings in the US alone sell for between $2 and $5 each, which is about 50 percent higher than domestic prices.
“Production costs for exporting them are also higher than moving them around the country here,” Weng said.
Xian Yangfu, deputy head of Foshan’s Shunde district, acknowledged that local government is pushing to develop high-tech agriculture.
“Exports in flowers are expected to play a big part in the district’s economic growth in the future,” he said.
Butterfly orchids, cultivated in Shunde, have been exported to Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Located in the western part of the Pearl River delta, the region is known for its flowers and plants, which are sold across the country and overseas.
Yang Guohai, deputy director general of Guangdong Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, confirmed that tighter inspection procedures and quarantine requirements would help to promote exports in high quality flowers and plants.
“We should be able to export more than 20 million medium butterfly orchid seedlings worldwide in the years to come,” Yang said, adding that 11 Chinese companies involved in the sector have been given the green light to export to the US.
Source: China Daily Date: 2017-06-29
AARTD为四川灾区人民祈福
AARTD 为四川灾区人民祈福。
Seeds fair opens in Ho Chi Minh City
The fifth seeds exhibition opened today in HCM City with over 350 booths set up by business groups, research institutes, schools, farms, co-operatives and businesses from around the country.
It has seven areas for showcasing agricultural materials, farm machinery and equipment, ornamental fish, bonsai, VietGap fruits and vegetables, seeds, aquaculture and livestock brood stock, and the city’s agricultural achievements.
Trần Tấn Quý, deputy director of the city Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and head of the event organisation board, said the fair is organised to showcase high-quality and high-yield seeds and animal and seafood brood stock.
It is also aimed at creating an opportunity for localities, businesses, and co-operatives to meet, compare notes, and explore business opportunities in agricultural production and trading and promote Vietnamese agricultural brands, he said.
Through the event the city hopes to enhance investment and trade promotion in the agricultural sector, helping make the city a leader in the production and supply of high-quality seeds and animal and seafood varieties to other cities and provinces.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Lê Thanh Liêm, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee, hailed the achievements of scientists and businesses in creating new seeds and animal brood stock and urged them to develop more production models and seeds and brood stock suitable for local conditions.
Several seminars, conferences and orchid and bonsai competitions will be held on the sidelines of the event.
The expo, organised by the department at the Biotechnology Centre in District 12, will run until June 26.
Source: VNS. Date: 2017-06-23
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Agriculture expo expected to draw Chinese investors
More than 1,000 Chinese investors and businessmen will soon come to Cambodia to seek investment partnerships with their Cambodian counterparts during the inaugural International Agriculture Products and Expository conference on Koh Pich Island.
The inaugural event is set for June 25 to 28 and expo organizer Bridget Lau, president of the US-International Federation for Supporting Small and Medium Enterprises, said 800 Chinese companies from 30 provinces in China will bring more than 8,000 pieces of agriculture equipment to showcase in Cambodia.
“Through this expo, we want the world to know about the Cambodian agriculture sector,” she said yesterday during a press briefing on the upcoming conference. “We strongly hope that Cambodian agricultural products will have more market access to the globe after the expo.”
“Cambodia has a wide range of agricultural products, so we are calling for Chinese investors to invest and purchase agriculture products from Cambodia,” Ms. Lau added, noting that companies from Taiwan, Japan and Vietnam are also attending.
Lim Heng, vice president of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, said that through this expo, more and more Chinese companies will partner with Cambodian companies to produce and process agricultural products to export to China and other countries.
“We don’t want to bring goods from China to sell in the Cambodian market; we want to have factories here to produce and process agricultural products for export,” he said.
Mao Minea, director of the department of agricultural extension at the Ministry of Agriculture, said the government supports the expo, just as it supports the sector.
He said the government has strategies to develop and boost the agriculture sector by building a 14.5-meter deep-sea port, lowering the electricity tariff, and developing airports for transportation.
Mr Minea added that Cambodia exported about 257,637 tonnes of rice in the first five months of 2017, up 10 percent compared to the first five months of 2016.
The government has also set up a taskforce to monitor commodity prices to protect people’s living standards, he said.
Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak will lead the taskforce with officials from relevant departments in the ministry.
The taskforce will study and collect data related to production, cost and supply chain capacity, including the commodity price of prioritised products such as rice, fish, chicken, pork, gas, diesel and cassava.
Source: Khmer Times. Date: 2017-06-22
Australia temporarily suspends Vietnamese shrimp import ban
Australian government authorities have lifted the ban on uncooked Vietnamese shrimp product import, allowing wild shrimp caught in Australia to be processed in Vietnam, before re-entering the Australian market.
The decision was made after the Australia’s Department of Agriculture and Water Resources received written confirmation by the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) under Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development that “it can meet conditions included in the updated health certificate.”
The Vietnamese department announced “it will be accepting permit applications for uncooked Australian wild caught shrimp exported to Vietnam for processing and re-imported into Australia from 15 June 2017.”
The department also said its “biosecurity import condition database system has been updated to reflect the new requirements” from the Australian Agriculture Department.
Import permit applications for Australian wild shrimp processed in countries other than Vietnam“will be accepted once the competent authorities in these countries provide assurance that they meet Australia’s new import conditions,” stated the Agriculture Department.
This determination has helped lift the temporary ban made by Australia in January on shrimp exports from Asian countries, including Vietnam, on worries about the white spot outbreak in the country.
In February, the department loosened the ban on dried shrimp, shelf-stable prawn-based food products and other products caught from the exclusive economic zone of Australia as the risk of white spot virus outbreak was low on these products.
In May, Vietnam’s ministries of Industry and Trade and Agriculture and Rural Development urged Australian agencies to consider lifting the ban on Vietnamese shrimp imports, reporting the damage to Vietnam’s shrimp exports to Australia.
According to the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia, this is the seventh largest shrimp market for Vietnam, accounting for 3.6 per cent of Vietnam’s total shrimp exports.
In 2016, Vietnam exported USD 114.6 million worth of shrimp products to Australia, of which processed shrimp made up 78 per cent of the total.
In the last five years, Vietnam has been the biggest shrimp product supplier to Australia and demand for prawn products in the country is forecast to rise.
Source: Khmer Times. Date: 2017-06-22
