Beef exports closed the first half of the year with a record in volume and foreign exchange earnings, which jumped 39.4% to US$ 1,750 million, reported the Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR).
In this way, beef shipments grew in value US$ 457 million going from US$ 1,293 million to the current amount.
The rise in prices was well above that recorded in volumesince the increase in this case was only 0.85%, going from 418,200 equivalent tons of bone-in beef to 421,770 tons dispatched in the January-July period.
Despite the small rise, it served to establish a new export record for this period.
In the first semester, US$ 1,750 million entered the country for beef exports
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“Analyzing the evolution of indicators for 2022, it could be affirmed that exports notably recovered the rhythm to the point that in the first 6 months of this year the largest merchandise shipments were made for this same period in history,” the stock market entity said. .
Likewise, in the work carried out by the specialists Alberto Lugones and Emilce Terré, it was underlined that “to account for the relevance of this event, it must be taken into account that the volume exported in the first half of this year implies a volume that triples the export records of five years ago for the same period”.
But beyond having reached the export record in volume, the participation of the external sector in total meat production fell.
According to the BCR, in these months meat production grew 3.4% and exports went from having a share of 28.3%, compared to 29% in the first half of 2021.
Taking into account the small increase in shipments, the jump in value corresponded largely to the rise in the international prices of the productwhich rose 38.2% during the period.
In its monthly report on exports prepared by the Meat Exporters Consortium (ABC), The explanation for this jump in income was given in “the rise in prices and a greater share of chilled meats and tariff quotas within the total, that have higher average values”. In this sense, he reported that in the first six months of this year the average price of a ton of meat was US$ 5,754, an increase of US$ 1,800 per ton compared to 2021 and similar to the record that had been reached by the end of 2019. According to ABC, “the growth of the average values of China, main destination, has allowed the significant rise in the value invoiced by Argentine beef exports of 40% in the first half of 2022″. On the other hand, the business chamber marked “a trend opposed to the evolution of exported tonnages, although it should The upward trend of recent months should be highlighted, in which the volumes exceeded the average since the measures were applied to manage meat exports in 2021″.
Export and quotas
Since May of that year, the national government decided ban the export of beef for two months before the strong rise in pricethat you had registered in the Internal market, with rises that placed the product almost 20 points above general inflation. After two months, the then Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and Productive Development designed a new scheme where prohibited the export of seven barbecue cuts, added to the fact that the companies they could only export half of what was shipped a year agowith the exception of installments like the Hilton. Today only the dispatch of the grill cuts is restricted, policy that will be maintained as explained by the Secretary of Agriculture, Juan José Bahillo and quotas that limit shipments of cuts of a certain category of animals. In this regard, in recent days Bahillo indicated during his participation in a congress organized by Coninagro that it could be “review the quotas” for beef exports and “permanently managing this situation on a fortnightly basis. We have to manage the tensions of growth on a temporary basis, but we have to continue growing.” According to data from the Agricultural Foundation for the Development of Argentina (FADA)the country today occupies the sixth place as the world’s leading exporter of meat. Although the FADA calculations differ from those of the BCR, since it includes offal, trifles, fat, hides and skins, among others, among others, it also highlights a growth in income of 34% to US$ 2,146 million in the first semester, while it estimated a drop in volume of 5% to 526,719 tons. The main destinations they were China, with 57% of shipments, followed by Germany with 7%, Israel with 5%, and the Netherlands and Chile with 4%.
