China: Poultry and Products Semi-annual
China is the world’s second largest poultry producer, and a major destination for U.S. poultry. It is by far the largest market for exports of U.S. chicken paws. However, imports of all poultry and poultry products from the United States were banned in January 2015 as a result of high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) detections. USDA has requested that Chinese authorities restrict the ban to raw poultry from the areas where there have been detections. While Brazil and other exporters are expected to fill some of the demand, Post expects total imports will drop by over 10 percent in 2015. The United States exported approximately $300 million in poultry products to China in 2014, down almost 30 percent from 2013. Post forecasts China’s 2015 broiler meat consumption to remain flat at nearly 12.8 million tons, in-line with previous USDA official estimates.