Latest Chinese beef import figures show that imports this year to October 2019 have reached 1.25m tonnes, 200,000t more than for all of 2018.

The impact of Brazil’s supply capacity being doubled is starting to reflect in volumes, with 41,454t of Chinese imports in September coming from Brazil, while Australia is the second-top supplier in October on 31,768t. Argentina, which is just ahead of Brazil as top supplier overall this year, was third in October.

Supplies from Uruguay dropped for the fifth month in a row to 19,824t, while New Zealand accounted for 14,297t of beef imported by China in October.

Five countries

These five countries accounted for almost 96% of all China’s beef imports in October. Ireland is still a very small supplier, with 882t coming into China in October. Interestingly, according to Bord Bia, prices for Irish beef in China are averaging $6,074/t (€5,423/tt) compared with a global average of the other supplying countries of $5,052/t (€4,511/t).

Cattle prices have been increasing steadily from CNY32.46/kg (€4.17/kg) at the beginning of 2019 to the present price of CNY37.29/kg (€4.79/kg). Demand from China has driven the market for cattle in all of the five countries that are the major suppliers and price has increased substantially in all of these apart from Argentina.