On this week’s audio report from the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF), USMEF Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer reflects on last week’s visit from a team of food and livestock industry leaders from Ecuador. The team visited the USMEF Denver headquarters to learn more about the U.S. meat industry and USMEF’s role in expanding global exports of U.S. beef, pork and

McEndaffer explains that, while the Ecuador market holds some promise for U.S. beef and pork, trade barriers make it difficult to serve.

“We have had pork access to Ecuador, but we were closed for beef access since the 2003 BSE case, and that market finally re-opened in April 2014,” she says in the report. “We’d had a market opening seminar, a lot of the importers were excited to have U.S. beef back in the market, and we do have some high end food service opportunities in the main cities like Quito, however, as of April 2015, the Ecuadorean government imposed a 45% import surcharge on top of the already high beef duties, so the steps we took in getting product back in the market have been offset because that surcharge makes our beef very expensive there.”

The U.S. industry is anxious to expand this success to Ecuador, but it will be a challenging market to develop without a free trade agreement. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is examining whether Ecuador’s import surcharges can be economically justified, though they are allowed to stay in effect during the WTO review.

Learn more in the full report here:
USMEF Report on Ecuador Market