Hong Kong importers prefer Aust, meat

Press, 9 November 1983, Page 14

Hong Kong importers prefer Aust, meat

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

The larger Hong Kong lamb importers switched most of their buying to Australia this year as a result of “inflexible” New Zealand pricing, according to meat industry sources in Hong Kong. Although there was good demand for New Zealand beef, this looked like being extremely scarce, Hong Kong importers said. One big importer said New Zealand had “lost a lot of friends internationally” because of its sheepmeat policy over the last couple of years. He cited New Zealand over-production during the recent recession, while acknowledging that part of the problem stemmed from the Middle East war depriving New Zealand of a potentially large market there. “Every New Zealand taxpayer has been stung while your Meat Board stored sheep and wasn’t prepared to bend its ideas on selling it,” the importer said. While New Zealand could sell high quality lamb to countries like Japan and the United States, it had to be much more flexible in the very price-conscious Far Eastern markets, he said.

Although the Hong Kong market for lamb was small — less than 1000 tonnes annually, it was a classic example of the board’s inflexibility, the importer said. New Zealand lamb sold at between 3 and 6 per cent higher than Australian lamb this year and as a result, the Australians had picked up the market, industry sources said. The board should be able to sell at various prices in various markets, rather than sticking to a fixed price policy, importers said. The fact that sheep kills were expected to be lower next year was, however, a step in the right direction, one said. “I think the board is still working out which way it’s going,” he added. “But I feel everyone else is learning the rules of the game before New Zealand.” The outlook for beef, said importers, was better, but they expressed fears that New Zealand supply would not be sufficient to meet demand. “New Zealand seems to be very short of cattle at the moment,” said Mr Simon Gunstone, of the importers, Poon Win. “We’re selling more

chilled beef than ever to the top end of the market — to the hotels and restaurants.” But, said Mr Gunstone, at the middle and lower end of the markets, neither New Zealand nor Australia could compete with the increasing activity of South American countries, such as Brazil and Uruquay, which were “desperate” to get rid of product.

Hong Kong’s beef market amounts to about 20,000 tonnes annually, with about 70 per cent supplied from China. “However, New Zealand is going to the top end of the market here,” he said. Given the shortage of quality beef world-wide, New Zealand could obviously afford to move its product to where it would get the best price, industry sources said.

Several importers queried why New Zealand persisted in over-producing sheep which it has for some time had difficulties marketing.

With the market for wool reasonably buoyant, a big shift in production was not necessarily a good idea, said other industry sources. A number of importers expressed concern over the Meat Board’s plans to take

over the marketing of all meat. They pointed out that with beef very strong in the market, very little marketing effort was needed, while New Zealand’s real problems in sheepmeat appeared to have partly resulted from the board’s own policies. New Zealand’s meat sales to Hong Kong for the first six months of the year were ?NZ27.6 million down slightly from 1NZ7.32 million in the corresponding period last year. Importers said that they expected over-all New Zealand export figures for meat to Hong Kong to drop. As the bulk of the trade was in beef, for which New Zealand could get a better price elsewhere, this was perhaps to its advantage, they said. “The next couple of years in the meat industry are going to be very interesting,’’ said one big importer. New Zealand would have to be much more flexible in its pricing and more accurate in its marketing, he said.