The Department of Agriculture is making progress in persuading the authorities in Beijing that Irish beef is safe, but it remains unclear when it can return to the Chinese market, junior Agriculture Minister Timmy Dooley said on Friday.
Sales of Irish beef in China were suspended last year after the discovery of a case of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in Ireland and there is no immediate sign of the ban being lifted.
“We still have a way to go. We made, I feel, good progress in explaining in a very clear and direct way that the single case of BSE was an atypical case, our general surveillance systems within Ireland picked it up as effectively a one-off, a very rare incident,” Mr Dooley told The Irish Times.
“From our perspective, we are BSE free.”
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Mr Dooley was speaking after meetings in Beijing with the Chinese department of agriculture and the General Administration of Customs, which regulates access to the market. He said there was no indication of how long the ban on Irish beef might last but the Government would continue to engage with the Chinese authorities on the issue.
There was better news on pork, with the prospect of enhanced access to the Chinese market and permission to sell pig offal for the first time.
China has the world’s biggest pork market and offal is an important element in Chinese cuisine.
“I welcome the progress we have made on enhanced pork access. We agreed that our officials will now engage on updating the protocol received today to include a greater range of porcine offal,” the Minister said.
Mr Dooley, who is Minister for State with responsibility for Fisheries, is in China at the head of an agri-food trade mission in collaboration with Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland. Earlier this week, he visited the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Qingdao, Asia’s largest seafood trade show, where he met eight Irish seafood companies operating in China.
[ BSE: what is it and where does it come from?Opens in new window ]
Irish fish exports to China have been growing in recent years, increasing in value by 41 per cent in 2024 to a total of €41.7 million, including 6,300 tonnes of shellfish worth €29 million. This year is on course to be better, with exports reaching €39 million between January and July this year.
“The middle class market is growing, and it’s growing around sustainable, high-quality, safe and traceable food, and that’s becoming much more important,” Mr Dooley said.
“The Irish Government stands behind its food production system, the sustainability of it, the safety of it, the traceability of it, the provenance of it, all of which is something that the discerning consumer of an ever-growing middle class in China is expecting and is demanding.”
