Delegation saves China meat trade

By LIAM DANN

New Zealand's $130 million meat trade with China has secured a last minute reprieve.

Trade Minister Jim Sutton said last night that exporters going into a new killing season unsure if they would be allowed permits to sell to China would now be allowed to carry on trading while final registration hurdles were worked through.

The Government had hoped that 45 New Zealand plants - which already met tough European Union sanitary standards - would be cleared to export meat to China for the new season.

With the season under way last week, Beijing authorities had passed only four processing plants.

Beijing had said that after October 31 it would not admit meat from any New Zealand plants not registered by its inspectors.

But after a delegation of officials from the Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) visited Beijing last week, China had agreed in principle to allow existing trade in meat products to continue while the details of the registration were finalised.

Sutton said the Chinese had also agreed to admit meat from integrated plants - those where all stages of processing occur at one site - without requiring inspections from their own officials.

Instead, they had agreed to accept NZFSA assurances on the standards at those plants. That would effectively allow about 30 of the biggest processing plants to be registered.

The breakthrough will be cause for some relief among officials in both countries working on a ground-breaking free trade agreement. A formal announcement on free trade negotiations between New Zealand and China is expected at this month's Apec forum in Chile.

Sutton said that had been a factor, but both sides had worked hard to tidy up the issue so it did not overshadow what would hopefully be a positive announcement later this month.

"We have to meet their standards and you can't complain about that."

But the fact that the two countries had found a way through the technical difficulties showed there was a lot of goodwill in the relationship.

Meat Industry Association chief executive Caryll Shailer said she was thrilled with the breakthrough, which had paved the way for the final resolution of outstanding issues.

"Both Governments have worked hard and done well to achieve a positive result is a short timeframe."

Meeting deadlines

* New food safety regulations in China meant meat exporters needed to reapply for permits to keep trading.

* There were concerns the $130 million meat trade with China was in jeopardy after Beijing authorities passed just four processing plants as being up to export standard by the deadline of October 31.

* A delegation of Food Safety Authority officials went to Beijing last week.

* An agreement has now been reached to allow trading to continue while registration is worked through.