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Brazil meat scandal
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Chickens and sausages on display at a steakhouse in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: EPA

China probes ‘dumping’ of cheap Brazilian chicken on market

Chinese famers say the South American country has been selling the meat unfairly below market value on the mainland

China on Friday launched an anti-dumping investigation into imports of Brazilian broiler chicken and products after a complaint from the domestic industry that the South American country has been selling the meat below market value.

Brazil accounted for more than 50 per cent of broiler product supplies to China, the world’s second largest poultry consumer, between 2013 and 2016, according to a preliminary review, a commerce nministry statement said on Friday.

Any move to penalise imports worth more than US$1 billion a year would be a major blow to Brazil’s meat industry following a scandal over its beef exports earlier in the year, which threatened to tarnish the country’s protein industry.

Brazil replaced the United States as the top supplier of chicken after China slapped anti-dumping duties on US broiler chicken products in 2010.

China is the biggest national consumer of Brazilian meat.

China relies on imports for its supply of white feather broiler chickens, which are favoured by fast-food chains like KFC and McDonald’s for their more rapid development and plumper meat, compared with yellow-feathered birds, which are native to China and generally sold retail.

The investigation comes just months after Beijing slapped hefty penalties on sugar imports from top growers such as Brazil and Thailand after lobbying by domestic mills.
File picture of workers at a poultry processing factory in Brazil. Photo: AFP

Brazil accounted for 85 per cent of China’s frozen chicken imports last year. which totaled almost 600,000 tonnes, valued at as much as US$1.23 billion, customs data shows.

The push by China’s domestic industry for an anti-dumping probe comes as poultry farmers and processors recover from the nation’s worst outbreak of bird flu in years.

Chicken is a cheap alternative to pork, the nation’s favourite meat. The outbreak hurt demand for chicken meat as people worried about catching the deadly virus and sent prices to more-than-decade lows in February.

Live broiler chicken prices in Shandong province, one of the nation’s major producing areas, have since more than doubled, and were around 7.7 yuan (US$1.15) on Friday as the crisis passed and worries about infection eased.

Import prices from Brazil have remained quite low in comparison, making it hard for the local industry to compete, analysts said.

Shan Xuewei, a broiler chicken trader based in Shandong, said he believed the probe was unnecessary. “Brazilian chicken is indeed cheap ... and people of course will go for the cheaper stuff.”

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