Irish beef and offal exports to Japan increased 58% in 2019, rising from 849t in 2018 to 1,460t in 2019.

While Japan is a tiny export market for Irish beef and offal, it is continuing to grow in the first month of this year, with Irish exports at 265t for the month of January.

The EU-Japan free trade deal took effect from February 2019 and the high rate of Japanese import tariffs on beef is being progressively reduced over the next 15 years from the high level of 38%.

Japan imported a total of 441,000t of frozen beef in 2019, with the main suppliers being Australia on 169,000t, followed by the USA on 114,000t then a large drop back to Canada on 32,000t and New Zealand on 11,000t.

Japan also imported 275,000t of fresh or chilled beef in 2019, with 127,000t of this coming from Australia and 125,000t coming from the USA.

Pigmeat

Japanese imports of Irish pigmeat increased to 8,600t in 2019 compared with 7,800t in 2018.

Overall, Japanese imports of pigmeat increased from 925,000t in 2018 to 959,000t in 2019 despite global scarcity of pigmeat caused by African swine fever causing an increase in prices.

Bord Bia, which has an office in Tokyo, believes this is due to some stockpiling late last year in anticipation of further price increases.

The USA supplied over a quarter of Japan’s pigmeat imports in 2019 sending 249,000t, followed by Canada which exported 232,000t of pigmeat to Japan last year.

Denmark is the top exporter to Japan from Europe, sending 110,000t last year, with Mexico the next largest supplier on 102,000t.

Figures supplied by Bord Bia.