India?s meat product exports, which have risen sharply over the last four years, could get further impetus with China likely to give them market access in the next few months.
Processed bovine meat and processed meat shipments have been rising sharply because of increasing global demand from 65 countries, such as Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
A commerce ministry official said the quantum of shipments could increase sharply if China, a big market, allows Indian imports.
A delegation comprising senior commerce ministry officials and meat exporters would be meeting officials of General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), an arm of the Chinese government that supervises food safety issues, in Beijing next month.
In May, AQSIQ and India’s Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) had singed an MoU to allow buffalo meat exports to China. For bridging the trade imbalance between the two countries, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma, in a meeting with his counterpart Gao Hucheng, had signed an agreement.
?Exports of frozen meat and meat products from India have witnessed steady growth in the last few years because of stern and prompt measures taken by the government against the spread of diseases in buffalo, sheep and goat,? the commerce ministry official told FE.
The official said China provides a large market opportunity for Indian exporters, and APEDA and AQSIQ are expected to work out the modalities, mostly relating to quarantine issues.
According to APEDA data, the realisation from meat and processed meat products? exports doubled from R10,091 crore in 2010-11 to R20,130 crore last fiscal. In the first half of the current fiscal, meat products exports saw a sharp rise of 56% to R11,887 crore compared to the same period last fiscal.
Commerce ministry official said the sharp rise in shipments was largely because of concerted government efforts to eliminate animal diseases such as rinderpest and foot and mouth disease.
Rinderpest was eliminated in 1995 and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) officially declared India free of the disease while the incidence of foot and mouth disease is sporadic in India.
A note prepared by Apeda said that diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy and scrapie have never been reported in the country.
India, which accounts for nearly 13% of the world?s cattle population, half of buffalo population and 15% of goat population, rears most of its livestock on green pastures. The livestock is not stall-fed as is the trend in many meat- exporting nations.
