US pork industry working on exporting first shipments to India

The American pork industry is working on exporting its first shipments of pork to India, an industry leader has told lawmakers.

Randy Spronk, a Minnesota pork producer, was speaking during a Congressional hearing on behalf of the National Pork Producers Council.

''Currently, the US pork industry is working on exporting its first shipments of pork to India. While the threat of removing GSP benefits can induce countries to improve market access conditions for US pork, the possibility of being added to the eligibility list is another mechanism for countries to remove long-standing barriers,'' he said.

GSP was successfully used as leverage to obtain market access for US pork producers in India, he said.

Earlier, Spronk said, India was the number one recipient of preferential trade benefits under the US GSP programme but restricted the import of many US agricultural products including pork.

''The list of restrictions was quite extensive but through the leverage created by GSP, the US government was able to successfully negotiate away a long list of issues,'' he said.

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