The confirmation last week that China is lifting its 20-year ban on British beef is no doubt very welcome news.

With Chinese beef consumption up 44% in the last 15 years, and beef imports into the country expected to grow from 700,000t in 2017 to 2.2mt by 2022, it has the potential to be a market for significant volumes of NI beef in the years ahead. But with some British politicians talking up the announcement as an example of an outward looking UK, keen to explore new trading opportunities outside of the EU, it should perhaps be pointed out that the British are not exactly first to the party.

While getting the ban lifted is noteworthy for the UK, there follows a long process of getting protocols agreed, individual meat plants approved and export certificates in place

A fairly long list of EU countries, all excluded from China since the days of BSE, have been working hard on securing Chinese market access, and the reality is that the Irish, the French, the Dutch and the Poles are all well ahead of the British on that journey.

Among the EU countries it was actually the Irish beef industry that got in first.

The ban on Irish beef imports was lifted in 2015, and after three years of hard work by government and industry, the first meat plants received approval to export frozen beef this spring.

So while getting the ban lifted is noteworthy for the UK, there follows a long process of getting protocols agreed, individual meat plants approved and export certificates in place.

The recent example of NI pork, where it took nearly two years for final approvals to come through, prove it can be a frustrating process.

Commitment

It will require significant commitment and focus from government officials in Whitehall, and in the devolved administrations.

Meanwhile, Brexit is on the horizon which could yet mean resources are pulled in other directions. It might be a number of years before NI beef is on the menu in China.

Read more

China lifts ban on UK beef

Irish beef in the global marketplace