China Port Testing Threatens to Derail Global Meat Shipments
- China has started testing all imported meat for coronavirus
- Nation’s pig herd has been recovering faster than expected
An employee handles imported pork belly on a production line in Zhengzhou, China.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
China’s move to test imported meat for the novel coronavirus is threatening to snarl trade with the world’s largest pork consumer, hurting livestock farmers who had seen booming shipments of pork and beef.
Port authorities in the Asian nation are conducting nucleic acid tests on shipments of imported meat even as experts caution that food poses little risk of spreading the virus. Officials are testing inbound containers of meat at the port of Tianjin, said Darin Friedrichs, an analyst at INTL FCStone in Shanghai.