Over the past few months, Mexican regulatory officials have been conducting a review of the European Union’s pork industry to determine if additional suppliers should be approved for export to Mexico. Audits were completed in early July, with Mexican authorities also collecting information from EU member states regarding their animal health status and control measures for diseases such as African swine fever and classical swine fever. The European industry expects Mexico’s preliminary report to be issued this month, followed by a comment period, with the final report expected in January or February 2016. If additional EU facilities are approved for export to Mexico, shipments will not take place until after the final report is issued.

Currently Denmark, Italy and Spain have plants approved for export to Mexico, but only those in Denmark can ship fresh or frozen pork and pork variety meat. The Italian and Spanish plants are limited to processed pork products.

Through July, Mexico’s 2015 imports of U.S. pork/pork variety meat totaled 440,749 metric tons (mt), up 8 percent from the same period last year. Imports from Canada increased at a much higher rate, up 55 percent to 81,151 mt, helped by the weak Canadian dollar and reflecting the closure of the Russian market, which was a significant outlet for Canadian hams before Russia’s import embargo was imposed in August of last year. The U.S. currently holds about 84 percent market share in Mexico, with Canada at 15 percent. The remaining 1 percent is divided between Chile and the three approved EU suppliers.

Import data is from PIERS and Global Trade Atlas