U.S. pork exports up in 2004

U.S. pork exports up in 2004    While American beef sales suffered on the global market due to an incident of “mad cow” disease, U.S. pork exports posted healthy gains in 2004.
   “The U.S. is delivering a safe pork product,” said Philip Seng, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, in a statement. “USMEF has worked aggressively on health and sanitary issues to get U.S. pork into the market.”
   According to the federation, worldwide pork exports increased 11 percent, but U.S. pork exports are up nearly three times that amount at 32 percent.
   Japan imports the most U.S. pork. In Japan, the federation uses a “pork caravan” that travels to retail stores to promote the quality, taste and safety of U.S. pork. “Stores visited by the caravan had sales as much as five times greater than stores not visited by the caravan,” the federation said.
   “U.S. chilled pork exports to Japan have increased 12 percent through September of this year,” the federation added.
   Other strong overseas markets for U.S. pork are Mexico and South Korea. In Eastern Europe, U.S. pork exports to Romania increased 309 percent in volume to 4,476 metric tons and 572 percent in value to $6.9 million through September.
   The federation said it is confident that beef shipments will start to rebound in the global market early next year. Seng said if the industry achieves “meaningful beef export access to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Egypt, Hong Kong and China ' we will have 98 percent of our export trade reopened.”
   Canada, Mexico and many Caribbean and South American countries have already reopened their markets to U.S. beef.
   “Mexico has become the largest market for U.S. beef exports as the United States holds an 86-percent share of the country’s beef import market and an 80-percent share of its pork import market,” the federation said.
   “With Mexico’s population and per capita income rising and a reduction of land available for livestock and agriculture, red meat imports are expected to rise,” the federation said.