Sao Paulo | Reuters –– Brazil, the world’s top beef exporter, shipped 1.56 million tonnes of meat abroad in 2014, 3.3 per cent more than it did in 2013, industry association Abiec said on Thursday.
Volumes exported were near the 2007 record of 1.62 million tonnes. Beef exports by value were a record US$7.2 billion in 2014, up 7.7 per cent from 2013 as prices rose.
Exports to Hong Kong, the top buyer of Brazilian beef, increased by nine per cent, or 400,000 tonnes, in 2014.
Part of the beef Brazil exported to Hong Kong earlier in the year is thought to have been smuggled to China, which lifted an embargo on Brazilian beef in July.
Exports to Russia, the No. 2 buyer last year, grew by three per cent. Russia started importing more Brazilian beef after it imposed a ban on many western food products.
— Reporting for Reuters by Caroline Stauffer in Sao Paulo.
