The Chair of Canadian Pork Council says free trade agreements are helping to expand international marketing opportunities for Canadian pork.
Delegates attending the 2019 Manitoba Swine Seminar in Winnipeg last week were provided a “Canada Pork Export Trade Update.”
Rick Bergmann, the Chair of the Canadian Pork Council, says the Canadian pork sector exports approximately 70 percent of the product it produces so trade agreements, like the recently ratified Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership are vital to not only maintaining existing export markets but to expand market access.
In 2018 we would have exported to 85 different countries different volumes of product to these different countries. For sure our neighbor to the south is our major trading partner. We send an awful lot of product down there, 1.4 billion dollars worth of pork every year and, on the flip side with the USMCA intact, there’s also a lot of pork from the U.S. coming up here to Canada which is great.
Other markets, like Japan are very imperative to us. China, Mexico, these are all in the top three or four that are the ones that I’ve mentioned. It’s imperative for us to not only keep the markets that we have but to grow more.
We also recognize the GDP value of what the pork sector brings of 24 billion dollars a year to Canada. We recognize that we’re a huge economic engine for our country in that regard.
~ Rick Bergmann, Canadian Pork Council
Bergmann says Canada’s membership in the CPTPP has given Canada’s pork sector a competitive advantage over those nations that are not part of the agreement and the prospects of a Canada-ASEAN free trade agreement are also intriguing.
He notes the Association of Southeast Asian Nations represents a huge economic base and a market of 650 million people.
