The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, begins a trip to China this Saturday in the midst of the investigation carried out by this Asian country into pork and dairy products from the European Union (EU), which represent for Spain an export bill of almost 1,190 million euros, in the first case, and 91 million, in the second.
China announced the investigations by so-called “anti-dumping” (unfair competition) in response to the EU’s decision to impose higher customs duties on electric vehicles from the Asian country.
This case will be present in the conversations that Sánchez will have with the president of the Asian country, Xi Jinping, according to sources from the Spanish government.
These sources assured that The Government will always have a constructive attitude to try to avoid trade wars, always defending Spanish interests and especially now those of a sensitive sector for Spain such as pork.
That of Pork is undoubtedly the agri-food sector with the most commercial interests in China. and the one who will be most attentive to what can be gained from Sánchez’s trip, which will have a marked commercial and economic character, as well as political and cultural.
To measure the importance of this sector, we only need to look at the export data for 2023, the year in which Pig sales to China amounted to almost 1.187 million euros of the total of 1.882 million that Spain has invoiced in food products to the Asian giant, according to data from Foreign Trade.
So far, the Chinese investigation has focused on the three largest EU exporters in terms of volume, the Danish crown, the Dutch Vion Boxtel and the Spanish Litera Meat.
Spanish pork has entered the Chinese market with force due to swine fever crisis that the Asian country suffered in 2018, which caused it to lose almost half of its national production.
However, after reaching record export figures in 2020, with more than 2.5 billion euros billed only in meat, Excluding pork offal, this figure has been steadily declining and over the last three years, sales in value have fallen by 66.3%.
The Interprofessional Organisation of the White-Coated Pig (Interporc) has announced that it will be part of the official delegation of the Spanish government during this visit to China, with the aim of contributing to “strengthening alliances between the two countries”.
At the end of July, the meat companies association Anafric held a meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Spain, Yao Jing, during which the opening of the Chinese market to Spanish cattle and goat productswhose current presence is little more than a testimony.
The general director of the Spanish Association of the Meat Industry (Anice), Giuseppe Aloisio, believes that the meat sector, but also the dairy sector, They are “collateral victims” of the confrontation between the EU and China and demanded the utmost attention from the government and the European Commission (EC) to open channels of political and diplomatic communication with China.
Without express mention of Spanish dairy products
The figures for dairy exports to China are far behind those for pork, with those 91 million euros divided mainly between milk and cream, with almost 54 million euros; whey, with 29.48 million; and cheese, with 5.56 million.
The Chinese government has announced that it will review dairy products such as fresh cheese, curd or cream, and the effects of subsidy programmes on the dairy industry in Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Croatia, Finland, Romania and the Czech Republic.
Spain is not directly namedBut the National Association of the Dairy Industry (Fenil) told EFE that it was attentive to the repercussions that could arise.
That same week, the Secretary of State for Commerce, Amparo López Senovilla, met with representatives of the Spanish dairy industry to whom she transmitted the Government support for the Spanish dairy sector and its defense of interests on international markets.
China has already concluded the investigation for anti-subsidy practices on brandy imported from the EU and announced that it would not impose provisional customs duties on the product, even though it found that European producers were selling the alcohol on the Chinese market with “dumping” margins of 30.6% to 39%.
However, some possible rates on brandy They would have a limited impact in Spain, since sales of this liqueur in the Chinese market reached a total of 1.84 million euros in 2023, a figure that represents less than 0.2% of all Spanish spirits exports worldwide.
The Spain-China balance
Spain’s agri-food balance with China in 2023 showed a positive balance of 500 million euros, a figure 19.4% higher than the 2022 surplus, but 57% lower than that of 2019.
Exports to China, which ranks ninth among global buyers of food products from Spain, continue this downward trend and between 2019 and 2023 fell by 17.2% in value (up to 1,882 million euros) and 36.3% in volume (up to 854,099 tonnes).
