Vietnam enables exports of pig meat from a new Brazilian plant, located in the state of Minas Gerais. Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Tereza Cristina, shared this information last week during a webinar.
The addition of the plant is good news for Brazil. So far, not a lot of Brazilian pork has been going to Vietnam, although the country opened for imports from Brazil in 2016. Due to African Swine Fever (ASF) in Vietnam, there is however, a growing demand for pork from anywhere else. In 2019, Vietnam’s pork imports from all over the world more than doubled to 125,000 tonnes. The country is likely to become one of the top-10 pork importers as of this year.
Brazil is one of the countries that profit from this surge in demand. According to data from the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA), Vietnam imported 5,900 tonnes of pork from January to April this year, 68% more than in the same period in 2019. Last year, exports to Vietnam had already grown by 86.2% in terms of pork production, compared to 2018. In 2019, Vietnam bought 12,384 tonnes of pork cuts, 1,155 tonnes of pig by-products and 400 kg of salted pig meat.
Cristina said that since January 2019, Brazil has achieved approval for more than 700 agricultural facilities in order to export 65 agricultural products to 24 countries. “Those numbers show that the world looks at Brazil as a great food supplier,” she said.
In 2019, the total sum of Brazilian agricultural product exports to Vietnam added up to US$ 27.5 billion. One year prior, this was US$ 22.6 billion. With regard to pork, Vietnam was the 8th largest trading partner for Brazil in terms of both volume and value.
Read more about Brazil as pig producing country
Brazilian pork exports totalled 102,400 tonnes in May, which is 52.2% up from the same period last year (67,200 tonnes). In terms of revenue, monthly pork sales reached US$ 227.9 million, 58.4% more than May 2019 (US$ 143.8 million). “For the first time, we exceeded 100,000 tonnes or got paid US$ 200 million in a single month,” said Francisco Turra, ABPA president.