The world’s largest pork producer WH Group, between the US and China, finds diversity its best solution out of the trade war
- WH Group will import more meat from Europe and South America to satisfy China’s demand in the largest pork-consuming nation while domestic hog herds had been culled by an outbreak of the African swine fever
- It will also broaden Smithfield’s export markets to get around China’s tit-for-tat tariffs on American pork
China’s WH Group, the world’s largest pork producer and owner of Smithfield Foods of Virginia, is adopting a two-prong strategy to survive the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
The company will import more meat from Europe and South America to satisfy China’s demand in the largest pork-consuming nation while domestic hog herds had been culled by an outbreak of the African swine fever. It will also broaden Smithfield’s export markets to get around China’s tit-for-tat tariffs on American pork.
“Our contingency measure is to deepen our US exports to Japan, South Korea, Mexico and other nations, while our China business will import more from Europe [and South America],” said chairman Wan Long after its interim results announcement.
He was commenting on how the firm will cope after an August 6 Xinhua news agency report said China “has not ruled out import tariff on US agricultural products bought after August 3, and related Chinese companies have suspended purchasing US agricultural products.”
President Guo Lijun said the company’s US unit has exported around 100,000 tonnes of fresh pork to China in the year’s first half, “largely steady” from the same period last year.
