A day shows the role of foreign trade as strategic for the meat Spanish
on January 17, 2011
During the opening of the day, July Revilla, President of IBERAICE, the section of Iberian of AICE, briefly reviewed the situation of Spanish export market and stressed the importance of foreign trade for the Spanish meat industry, despite the difficulties faced by exporters by the weight of the sanitary barriers in international trade. Thus, he stressed the importance of the sectoral collaboration to access complex markets.
In the first speech of the day, Jaime Palafox, director of the Department of economic and Monetary Affairs and the internationalization of IFLA (Spanish Federation of food industry and beverages), recalled the importance of the food industry. "It is the first Spain and with a positive balance of foreign industrial sector". Within this good export performance, stressed the big jump by the meat industry, first export sector of the food industry, with a champion: the pig sector.He then exhibited the actions of promotion Plan designed by the IFLA for this year, which includes a set of initiatives of great interest, such as exhibitions, gastronomic days and promotional point of sale.
For its part, Valentin Almansa, Assistant Director-general of health agreements and Control on border of the Ministry of environment and Rural Environment and marine (MARM), argued that the export must become part of business strategy, and not an economic activity to dispose of surpluses. Then raised some guidelines to be followed from the Administration and the sectors to open and maintain foreign markets, where the seriousness, credibility and confidence as country, in its good doing, their systems of control, their health and quality standardsthey are keys to negotiate with third countries. He also noted the importance of certified officers, because "Spain" is the entity that certifies its accuracy and thereby put at risk its credibility. He finally noted the support of the Ministry to the list of exporting companies, stressing the importance of this instrument.
Then Javier Sierra, Director of the environment, Rural and marine of the Embassy of Spain in Beijing, to the large group of businessmen and heads of foreign trade assistants explained the characteristics of the Chinese market, a país-continente of colossal dimensionsof great diversity, contradictions and contrasts. It is the second largest economy in the world in 2010 though it ranks number 100 because their GDP per capita. In addition, Sierra discussed in depth the trade relations between China and Spain and the steady growth of the presence of Spanish companies there. For example, in the year 2000 only there in China 30 Spanish companies, and in 2010 already were 540. However, he said, still the Spanish presence is very small.
Rocío Alberdi, Director of the Division of foods products of ICEX, unveiled the structure and activities of the Institute, highlighting the asset that represents the network of commercial offices abroad, which are an instrument of support to exporters.
The last lecture of the day was given by of Óscar Pérez-Borbujo, CEO of Opera Global Business, which analysed the problems of meat export from another perspective and explained the essentials in the process of internationalization of meat companies. In his speech, the head of the international consulting company, referred to some shortcomings of Spanish SMEs, such as the lack of culture oriented to export, the scarcity of resources which involved and the need for more professionaltraining and orientation toward the destination markets.
During the year 2009, the Spanish meat industry exported 1.22 million tonnes of meat (, 865.000 pork) and almost 100,000 tons of finished products. The value of these exports exceeded 2.5 billion euros per year to markets around the world, with a very positive trade balance (coverage rates above 200%), a fact that very few relevant economic sectors can be, and that contributes to alleviate our country's traditional trade deficit. With the latest available data of the year 2010, for the month of September, the sector has sold in foreign markets a total of 973.782 tons (898.049 tons of meat) and 75.733 tonnes of processed of all kinds, which led to a 2% increase over the same period in 2009, with recoveries in the quantities of meat sheep sold (which grow by 50% compared to 2009 volumes), cured sausages (which almost double the export of the previous year) and in beef and veal, which grew 8%.
