The Chair of Manitoba Pork says ratification of the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement by the Canadian and U.S. governments would benefit pork producers in both countries.
Last October the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement announced an agreement in principal and the deal now must be ratified by the governments of those countries.
Last week representatives of Manitoba Pork travelled to Des Moines, Iowa for World Pork Expo and the opportunity to discuss issues of mutual concern, including trade, foreign animal disease control and pork industry expansion with their U.S. counterparts and to gather information on the latest available technology.
George Matheson, the Chair of Manitoba Pork, says exports are vital to the pork industry and the TPP offers an excellent opportunity.
It’s important to producers on both sides of the border. In Canada we do export 60 percent of our product so, when you have a chance to access 40 percent of the world’s economy, you want to take full advantage of that. I’m sure U.S. producers feel the same way. They would not export the same percentage but, considering they are in the process of constructing 2 or 3 large world scale processing plants, they want a market for this pork and the Asian market is where they’re looking primarily. ~ George Matheson – Manitoba Pork
Matheson says relations between the Canadian and U.S. pork industries are very good.
He notes, over the past number of years, representatives of Manitoba Pork have been attending World Pork Expo and the Pork Congresses in both Minnesota and Iowa in January developing face to face relations and have discovered we’re an integrated industry, our problems and challenges are very similar and producers in Canada and the U.S. are working together.
