@article{Ronan:125875,
      recid = {125875},
      author = {Ronan, Glenn and Langberg, Jack and Moore, Michael},
      title = {Evaluating the Export Growth Strategy of the Australian  Pork Industry},
      address = {2001-01},
      number = {412-2016-25894},
      pages = {29},
      year = {2001},
      abstract = {Small size, dependence on domestic feed-grain and the  generic nature of pork would suggest poor export prospects  for Australia’s pig and pigmeat industries against leading  export countries in North America and Europe. The federal  government challenged the industry to do just that when it  began opening the domestic pigmeat market to imports in  1990. The 1998 pig industry crisis converted industry and  government from protagonists to partners in a concerted  export growth strategy. The Federal Government commenced a  $24 million Business Grants Program for the Pork Industry,  including processing investment incentive grants and  assistance to improve competitiveness through alliance  formation. Industry formed an Export Marketing Group (EMG),  transformed in April, 1999, into a processor alliance, the  Confederation of Australian Pork Exporters (CAPE). CAPE  quickly defined the industry’s export marketing target to  achieve 20 percent of farmed pigmeat production as exports  by 2002. After very slow export progress until the  late-nineties, ‘lucky breaks’ arising from pig industry  disease outbreaks in Asia have led to better export  opportunity in Japan and a trade alliance for pork exports  to Singapore. From minimal in 1998, Australia now supplies  more than 50 percent of Singapore’s fresh pork requirement  with Airpork, airfreighted, chilled pork. The paper:  Outlines the growth of pork imports and exports in the  transition from protected domestic industry to open market,  with government assisted restructuring; Presents a value  chain analysis of the Australian pork industry, explaining  the apparent anomaly of simultaneous growth in pork exports  and imports where domestic aggregate pork production and  consumption are approximately equal; Provides an  explanation for the deviation between assessment of poor  prospects and actual export performance. A qualitative  evaluation of the growth prospects for pork exports from  Australia in both the short-term and the longer-term is  presented with consideration of key strengths, including  Australia’s favourable environment for minimal-disease pig  farming, product differentiation and freight logistics,  weaknesses in small size and domestic feed-grain dependence  and threats from imports. Recent spectacular pork export  success fits comfortably with modern trade theory, where  factor endowment, economies of scale and product  differentiation are all relevant to explaining  intra-industry trade and the development of niche markets.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/125875},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.125875},
}