China’s meat trade is happy about the looming end of testing and disinfecting chilled and frozen foods for COVID-19, more than two years after Beijing started the contentious practice, which added large costs to the trade.
The State Administration for Market Regulation will stop testing chilled and frozen foods for COVID-19 on January 8 and will also no longer require all imported chilled and frozen foods to enter centrally located warehouses for disinfection and testing before they reach the domestic market.
The dropping of measures follows a similar announcement from the customs authority that it will stop testing cold-chain food arriving at the country’s ports.
Having forced the world’s severest COVID regime of lockdowns and persistent testing for three years, China changed course this month towards living with the virus, though new infections have climbed.
China started testing chilled and frozen food imports for COVID in 2020 after an outbreak of the disease in a wholesale market led authorities to believe the virus had spread from imported produce.
The practise was controversial with trade partners and significantly slowed the shipment of food to China, the world’s top buyer of meat and many other perishable goods. It also raised costs for both importers and exporters.
The cancellation of testing and disinfection requirements will definitely benefit the meat trade in terms of reducing extra costs and speeding up the movement of goods.