Claudia Saumell, Africa Manager, Bord Bia – Irish Food Board
In 2014, DRC’s beef, pork and edible offal imports amounted to 47,424 tonnes with a value of US$60.8 million. Overall growth in the volume of imports during the 5 year period has been strong at +128% and at +178% in value terms. The strongest growth during this period has been registered from 2012 to 2013 reaching a +40% growth in value terms which is possibly due to the recovery of copper prices around half 2013.
DRC is a net importer of food products with a strong presence of imported meat products from the EU even though there has been some changes on import trends over the 5 period year analysed worth mentioning: in 2014 the strongest exporter of Fresh/chilled beef is South Africa and India is positioned as the second strongest exporte.
In terms of frozen meat, the most significant change over the 5 year period is the performance of India, whose exports increase from 158 tns to 3,500 tns, becoming the strongest exporter of frozen beef by far.
As far as pork imports are concerned, the majority of product is coming from the EU. The period of analysis shows a change from The Netherlands being the largest exporter to a shared top position along with Belgium and Germany: in 2010 The Netherlands exported 8,036 tones of swine to DRC and in 2014 the volume decreased to 3,086 tns. Belgium increased from 337 tns in 2010 to 4,369tns in 2014 and Germany from 619 tns to 8,974 tns.
The Office Congolais de Control Veterinaire is the department within the Ministry of Agriculture in charge of the development of animal production. According to Dr. Nlemba the estimated annual total meat production is 90,000 tonnes. In terms of livestock, it is estimated there are a total of 7 m heads, 60% goats, 15% pigs, 14% sheeps and 11% cattle. The government has interest to rehabilitate some cattle farms that were destroyed by the wars particularly in the Katanga region (South of the country bordering Zambia), North and South Kivu ( Goma and Maisisi) in the North East bordering Rwanda and Burundi.
Offal is the meat category most sold in DRC both at modern retail and informal market.
To find out information about Meat importers in DRC, please contact Claudia Saumell at Claudia.saumell@bordbia.ie