Meat and Livestock Australia also reports lamb shipments during 2012-13 also improved, up 38% year-on-year to 33,993 tonnes.
Beef and veal exports to China for the fiscal year soared 1093% year-on-year to a record 92,279 tonnes, making the Asian giant the fourth-largest single export destination after Japan, the U.S. and South Korea.
Total volumes of 62,421 tonnes to China during the first six months of this year exceeded the total annual shipments for 2012 of 32,906 tonnes.
Australian chilled beef exports to China have increased over the last 10 years, with the volumes during the first six months of 2013 reaching the highest volume yet, at 8890 tonnes.
MLA says Australian sheep meat shipments to China in the first six months of this year totalled 40,607 tonnes, with lamb accounting for 17,864 tonnes and mutton 22,743 tonnes.
MLA expects the demand to continue to grow. “On the back of the strong growth in personal income and improving infrastructure, combined with rapid urbanisation in China, there is reportedly increasing demand for imported red meat from a wider area of China,” it says in a new report.
Demand for Australian product is also helped by a declining national sheep flock in China and the need for imports to substitute for local product.
“Along with increased lamb slaughter and production in Australia, the ongoing strong economic conditions and growth in China are expected to lead to a further increase in lamb exports in 2013,” MLA says.
Chinese sheepmeat imports during the first eleven months of 2012-13 increased 91% year-on-year to 165,324 tonnes. Its imports in
the first five months of this year rose 110% to 99,972 tonnes.
Australia’s imported sheepmeat market share in China increased for the first five months of 2013 to 39% at 39,379 tonnes, but New Zealand accounted for 58% of the total over that period with 57,652 tonnes.
New Zealand was China’s largest supplier during 2012-13, the annual shipments rising 90% to 91,340 tonnes, accounting for 55% of the imported sheepmeat market.
New Zealand has the advantage of a free trade agreement with China that puts the Australian trade at a disadvantage.
