Daily News Update, Feb. 22, 2008

Export markets update

According to newly released statistics, exports for U.S. beef are very strong in all our foreign markets except for South Korea, Japan and China. The United States is now exporting record numbers to 22 countries including Mexico and Canada, which are currently our number one and number two markets, respectively.

NCBA Chief Economist Gregg Doud analyzed the latest year-end trade data from USDA, crunched the numbers, and came up with the following notable statistics for 2007:

• Mexico is the top market for U.S. beef exports. We exported $1.185 billion worth of U.S. beef and beef products to Mexico, a new record.

• Canada is our second largest market. We exported $602 million worth of U.S. beef and beef products to Canada. This also breaks the previous record by a huge margin.

• The United States exported beef/beef products to 104 countries, setting new records for 22 of them. In addition to Mexico and Canada they are the following:  Armenia, Belize, Chile, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Jamaica, Mauritius, Philippines, Suriname, Taiwan, Ukraine, UAE, Vietnam and Yemen.

• The United States exported a record $69 million in beef and beef products to the Caribbean. The previous record for exports to this area was $59 million in 2006.

• Total U.S. beef, beef variety meat and processed product exports were $2.618 billion. This figure is up from $2.031 billion in 2006, but still down from the $3.86 billion record of 2003.