Hong Kong, China’s gateway to the west, has lately lifted its obligatory COVID-19 quarantines for worldwide vacationers and relaxed different social-distancing restrictions sufficient to encourage guarded optimism that markets can begin to get well, together with that for pet meals.
China’s “Zero-COVID” coverage has introduced Hong Kong companies, particularly small ones, to their knees as expatriates and residents left in droves, with or with out their pets, leading to an unsteady marketplace for pet meals within the final two years.
A market report by america Division of Agriculture’s Overseas Agricultural Service (FAS) famous that Hong Kong’s world pet meals imports within the first quarter of 2022 decreased by 9% to $34 million in comparison with the identical interval in 2021. It is a downward development that was additionally seen in 2021 when Hong Kong’s world pet meals imports slowed 11% to $152 million.
Nonetheless, within the first quarter of 2022, Hong Kong’s pet meals re-exports dropped and retained extra of its pet meals imports by 38% to $26 million, the FAS mentioned, most definitely for its personal home gross sales and consumption. Hong Kong normally re-exports its imported pet meals to mainland China and Macau. In 2021, Hong Kong re-exported $56 million (or 37% of gross imports) to different markets and retained $96 million (or 63% of gross imports) for home consumption, the FAS mentioned.
Often called Asia’s World Metropolis, Hong Kong is definitely a worldwide hub for commerce and its reopening is predicted to reawaken demand for imported pet meals because it does not have any native manufacturing. Canine and cat meals account for 99% of all pet meals home gross sales which reached $633 million final 12 months ($306 million for pet food and $327 million for cat meals) regardless of a pandemic-weakened economic system. Hong Kong’s client spending on premium pet meals is predicted to proceed rising steadily, with gross sales poised to achieve $667 million this 12 months and develop to $844 million by 2026, the FAS mentioned.
In 2021, Hong Kong was the thirteenth largest marketplace for U.S. pet meals exports and a hub for pet meals commerce to the area. Right here, American pet meals makers have a stable 29% share of the market. The remainder of the imported pet meals market are shared by manufacturers from Thailand, Japan, Canada and Taiwan.
Alma Buelva is a journalist from the Philippines. When she’s not writing about enterprise and know-how, she devotes her time to caring for animals and writing about them, too.
