China investigating Dutch firm Vion over fears it is dumping pork on their market

China is investigating how meat processing company Vion from Boxtel is bringing its pork products to the Chinese market. Two other companies in the European Union are also at the center of the investigation. Beijing suspects the business of dumping, which is selling products at an artificially low price on the Chinese market.

This was announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. Vion is the biggest meat producer in the Netherlands and is among the three largest EU pork processor companies that export to China. The other companies Beijing is investigating are Danish Crown, which is from Denmark, and Litera Meat, which is from Spain.

The companies have been requested to fill in a questionnaire, the ministry reported. China has also involved 24 domestic pork producers in the investigation. The government wants to know from these companies what extent the possible dumping harms them.

Vion denied the claim, referring to a response made by the Centrale Organisatie voor de Vleessector (COV), which represents the interests of employers in the Dutch meat industry. COV chairman Laurens Hoedemaker says he is confident that China's investigation will show that there is no dumping. "We hope to continue the mutually beneficial cooperation with China so that we can provide Chinese consumers with high-quality, safe, and sustainable pork products from Europe," he said.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced it was starting an investigation last week. This announcement came shortly after the European Commission reported that it was implementing significantly higher import fees on Chinese electric cars.

However, Beijing claims that the investigation comes after a formal call from the China Animal Husbandry Group (CAHG), a state company representing the Chinese pork industry. According to CAHG, the amount of pork from the EU on the Chinese market is enough to be considered dumping.

Rabobank previously stated that the amount of pork exported from EU countries to China has fallen in recent years. The bank also expects this decrease to continue. For example, in 2020, 55 percent of the total EU pork exports went to China, compared to 30 percent last year.

Chinese trade restrictions, like higher import fees, have had a negative effect on the European pork market, said Rabobank. China is one of the largest markets for the EU when it comes to pork. The total imports were worth over 1.7 billion euros last year. Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands are believed to be responsible for most of this.