Recently, 473.9kg of Italian frozen pork was imported to China, and it is the first time such a type of pork has been allowed to access the Chinese market.

Affected by the African Swine Fever that has decimated the supply of domestic pork, pork imports in China have seen a high rate of growth this year. Data from Shanghai Customs shows that in the first 10 months of this year, 577,000 tons of imported pork were cleared through Shanghai Customs, double the amount compared with the same period of last year. Pork imports have a total value of 9.05 billion yuan, an increase of 1.6 times from last year.

How to ensure the safe and fast customs clearance of imported pork is a key issue Shanghai Customs is currently focusing on.

At the beginning of this year, the relevant departments of Shanghai Customs realized that meat importers and industry associations urgently needed to further reduce the customs clearance time and cost of imported meat. Therefore, based on the historical monitoring data and the actual situation of the Shanghai Ports, Shanghai Customs proposed an optimization plan for the inspection of imported meat. At present, the customs clearance efficiency of imported meat at the Shanghai Port has been greatly improved, and the business environment at the port has been further optimized.

Shanghai Xinshangshi International Trade Company is mainly engaged in importing meat and aquatic products. In 2018, it imported more than 80,000 tons of meat products including pork, beef and mutton from various countries, with an import value of 460 million dollars. The performance has even seen substantial improvement in 2019.

Speaking of such business success, Xu Wei, a person in charge said that it is inseparable from the government's support for import and export enterprises and continuous improvement of the business environment.“This year, Customs has twice lowered the sampling rate of the import meat, and the acceleration of the sampling time has also brought us a substantial benefit in speeding up the flow of goods and reducing the pressure on corporate funds and inventory,” said Xu.

In October, the national Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.8% year-on-year, an increase of 0.8 percentage points over the previous month and pork prices rose by 101.3%.

Thus, in order to further protect the domestic pork supply, Customs will speed up the quarantine access and risk assessment process for meat products, and promote the registration of overseas production enterprises to promote the entry of high-quality meat into the Chinese market.