main exporter of the EU and billions invoiced per year
The reappearance of African swine fever in Spain after 31 years without cases is very worrying to a sector of multimillion-dollar exports: in economic terms, the pork sector generates more than 8,000 million euros per year for its exports, according to Foreign Trade data. This makes Spain the second largest exporter in the world and the first in the European Union (EU).
Furthermore, the possible effects of the reappearance of swine flu are relevant on a global economic scale: swine represent more than 80% of Spanish meat exportsmore than 15% of those in the food industry and 2% of the national total, according to sectoral sources.
With the arrival of the pathogen in Catalonia, one of the pork producing hubs in Spain, experts are now studying the potential impact on an industry in which, just between January and September of this year, sales already amounted to almost 6 billion euros.
China, main importer with more than 1,000 million
Spanish pork exports are present in 130 markets, where they have the capacity to reach some 4,000 million potential consumers. In that sense, China remains the main destinationwith more than 570,000 tons shipped and an invoice that exceeds 1,000 million (2024 data).
Now it remains to be seen if these third destinations decide to close the border to the entry of products only from the areas close to the outbreak or, on the contrary, veto imports from all of Spain.
In that sense, the Chinese position established two weeks ago leaves good news: in the event that cases of African swine fever are detected in Spain (as has happened)the Chinese authorities will accept regionalization of exports. That is, pork could continue to be exported to China from areas free of outbreaks.
