Meat industry in Brazil gives vacation after running out of Chinese quota

Sthe president of the Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries (ABIEC), measures vary between companies and reflect the need to adjust production to the fall in sales to the Chinese market, the main destination of the brazilian product.

“Last year we sent about 1.7 million tons to China and we were assigned a quota of 1.106 million tons this year,” said Roberto Perosa in a statement.

According to the manager, companies with greater market diversification reduced production, while others resorted to collective vacations in some industrial units, without detailing, however, the number of companies and people on vacation.

Perosa said that the decrease in Chinese purchases will reduce the export volume despite efforts to increase sales to other destinations.

The president of ABIEC explained that shipments already carried out practically exhausted the Brazilian quota, although Chinese accounting still does not reflect the limit, because the sea voyage takes between 40 and 60 days.

According to Perosa, production destined for the Chinese market has been interrupted and exports should be resumed only when there is trade conditions for this.

After the quota is exhausted, the import tariff on Brazilian beef goes from about 12% to 67%, with a surcharge of 55%.

ABIEC stated that it works with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to open or expand markets such as Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, in an attempt to compensate for part of the reduction in sales to China.

Currently, Brasilia tries to convince Beijing to allow Brazil to use share of beef exports not used by other countries to extend the supply to the Asian giant.

In 2025, Brazil exported about 3.5 million tonnes of beef and, of this total, about 1.7 million tonnes went to China.

This volume represented USD 8.8 billion in revenue (about EUR 7.56 billion).