“This is great news for US pork producers,“ said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. “China is one of our biggest markets, so being able to ship pork there is extremely important to the US pork industry, which has been hurting economically for more than two years now.

“With the lifting of the H1N1 ban on US pork, we will focus on the remaining impediments to exporting US pork to China,“ Mr Carney said.

The US pork industry shipped nearly 400,000 metric tons of pork worth nearly $690 million to China/Hong Kong in 2008, making it the No. 3 destination for US pork. Last year, US pork exports to China/Hong Kong were down by 38 per cent, falling to just under $427 million.

In October, at the conclusion of the annual US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting, China announced that it would rescind its pork import ban. Since then, NPPC has worked closely with the Obama administration to pressure the Chinese to actually lift their ban and begin accepting US pork imports.

NPPC is continuing to urge the administration to press China to address a number of other trade-related issues that limit US pork imports. Among those issues are China’s ban on US pork produced with ractopamine – an FDA-approved feed additive that improves efficiency in pork production – subsidies China provides its domestic pork producers and a value-added tax it imposes on imports.