(CA) + (CN) CHINESE APPROVAL OF CANADIAN MEAT PLANTS

February 10, 2001

CHINESE APPROVAL OF CANADIAN MEAT PLANTS ANTICIPATED IN EARLY 2001

February 1, 2001

Farmscape (Episode 609)

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency expects further word from China on

the progress of it's approval of Canadian meat processing plants within

the next couple of months. I'm Bruce Cochrane and this is Farmscape...a

presentation of Manitobas pork producers. I'll be back...in a moment.

As part of a trade deal signed in November, 1999 China agreed to reduce

tariffs on Canadian beef and pork and relax import restrictions. Since

the signing of that deal the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been

working with meat packers to get Canadian processing plants approved to

ship product into China. CFIA Executive Vice President Dr. Andre Gravel

says the approval process officially started last October at which time

China indicated it would be getting back to the agency in the first

quarter of 2001.

The plants that are on the list for approval are a combination of hog

plants and beef plants and once they're approved it will certainly allow

Canada to expand it's export of meat products in China. I don't think

they have any concerns about the plants themselves but what they

mentioned is that, in the application for recognition, there is a lot of

documents that are provided and

of course these documents are in English so they have to be translated.

They also mentioned to me that there were significant cuts in their

organization and very limited resources to look at the submissions and

also that many of them are very busy with the accession of China to the

WTO and they're the same technical experts so those are some of the

reasons the Chinese are using.

With a population of 1.2 to 1.4 billion people China is expected to

become a substantial buyer of Canadian beef and pork products. Dr.

Gravel says, although there is no specific time frame, China is

committed to speeding up the approval process and is expected to address

the situation as quickly as possible. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce

Cochrane.

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