April 3, 2000

National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) President Craig Jarolimek announced today that "a new era of opportunity for American pork producers in China" began Sunday night with the first shipment of pork from San Francisco to Shanghai. The air freighted shipment of ribs and pork sausages was imported by City Supermarket Company Limited, an upscale retailer in Shanghai.

Recently, China published rules implementing the Bilateral Agreement on U.S.-China Agricultural Cooperation. The agreement, which was signed in April 1999, provides that any importer in China can import pork from any federally inspected U.S. pork plant.

Jarolimek said the pork shipment demonstrates China’s commitment to rules based trade and should help create momentum for a positive congressional vote later this year on granting China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status.

"U.S. pork is being welcomed at a Chinese port right now," Jarolimek said. "This is only a trickle compared to what pork producers can expect once China gains membership in the WTO and tariff rates begin to fall."

Jarolimek warned, however, that without a positive congressional vote on PNTR, U.S. producers would still face high Chinese tariffs compared to the rest of the world’s producers.

"China will become a WTO member with or without U.S. support, but unless congress votes yes on PNTR, pork producers in Denmark, France, and Canada will take advantage of reduced tariffs that won’t be available to American producers," Jarolimek said. It would be ironic and shameful to see American producers locked out of a market American negotiators had opened so skillfully."

Under the U.S. – China WTO agreement, tariffs on frozen pork variety meats and frozen pork muscle meats, will be phased down to 12 percent over a four year period once China becomes a WTO member. At the start of WTO negotiations, China’s tariffs on imported pork were as high as 43 percent.

"Per-capita consumption of pork in China already is as high as per-capita consumption in the United States and most analysts expect future demand for pork in China to grow rapidly," Jarolimek said. "But even if demand grows by only a modest three percent a year, that incremental increase in demand would represent twice the level of current U.S. pork exports."

The U.S. extends Normal Trade Relations to all but six nations, and more than 100 nations receive preferential U.S. tariff treatment more favorable than NTR.

NPPC co-chairs the Agriculture Coalition for U.S.-China Trade, an organization comprised of 75 agriculture-related groups dedicated to ensuring open trade with China.

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