China’s General Administration of Customs said on Thursday that it has allowed imports of soybean meal, rapeseed meal, sunflower meal and sugar beet pulp from Russia, Reuters reported.
Exporters of these animal feed ingredients must be inspected and approved by Russian authorities and also registered with the Chinese regulator, the customs authority said in a statement on its website.
The trade move came after China approved more soybean, wheat and barley imports from Russia, as a festering Sino-U.S. trade war curbed American agricultural shipments.
This week, the largest meat producer in Russia, Cherkizovo Group, said it is looking forward to selling pork and soybeans in China. The company began shipping poultry products to the country last month.
Hopes that China would buy more pork, soybean and other protein products from the U.S. were dashed last month after trade negotiations with the Trump administration fell apart. Beijing included pork and chicken on a list of retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of American products in May and China has also reportedly suspended its soybean imports from the U.S. since then.
As a starting point, Mikhailov said his company expected to ship around 1,000 to 1,500 tons of poultry products, mostly chicken feet, wings and drumsticks, to the Chinese market next month, quickly rising to 2,000 to 3,000 tons per month.
“We estimate the potential for Russian poultry exports to China may be around 200,000 tons a year, and Cherkizovo alone is targeting to reach 40,000 tons of poultry products to China next year,” Mikhailov said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
