CHINA’S Safeguard anti-dumping investigation into imported beef will be extended by another two months, the country’s Ministry of Commerce announced yesterday.

Initially scheduled to be completed in late August, the investigation timeline was first extended by three months to November 26, due to the complexity of the case, the ministry said.

The process has now been push back again, to the end of January. China’s wholesale beef prices dropped with the announced delay in the investigation.

The Ministry launched the investigation in December last year, following complaints from cattle raisers in China after they faced significant price declines last year.

A request for an investigation came from China’s Animal Agriculture Association and nine associations representing major beef producing areas on behalf of domestic beef farmers. The investigation examined data from 2019 (around the time when exports from Australia started to escalate) to 2024.

After last year’s sharp price declines in domestic Chinese cattle, local cattle and beef prices have rebounded this year – but the local industry continues to struggle with excess processing capacity and a lack of a formal cow/calf sector.

Domestic Chinese beef production and prices are heavily impacted by the dairy industry, and China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has reported milk prices remain down 3pc from a year ago. Beef prices are up 7pc from last year and mutton is up 2pc, while chicken prices are down 5pc and pork is down 20pc, on massive domestic production growth in the rebound after the African Swine Fever outbreak of some years ago. Sluggish consumer demand for meat protein reflects continued lack of Chinese consumer confidence, observers said.

Twenty two beef suppliers were affected by the current Government probe into meat imports, mainly from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Imports of products under investigation accounted for 31pc of the overall Chinese beef market, the ministry said.

While China’s investigation is not country-specific, Brazil is clearly the biggest influence on the country’s imported beef market, exporting 167,000t to China last month, up 31pc year-on-year. In comparison Australia in October exported only 24,000t, still up 28pc on the same time last year, but the lowest since March.

US exports to China have virtually disappeared this year, due to both tariff actions and plant licence renewal delays, which have seen more than 300 US meat packing plants left without access since March. US exports last month were only 402t, the lowest since 2018 when the market first started to emerge.

Overall, China imported 490,000t of red and white meat protein and offals last month, and for the first ten months of the year, 5.23 million tonnes. Beef alone accounted for 2.4 million tonnes.

Australia has submitted that with our relatively small share of the import market in China, our product’s impact on the Chinese domestic cattle market is small. That’s especially so given the different segments the two products sit in, with Australian exports skewed towards grainfed and chilled.

Brazil’s massive export volumes to China are seen as the real culprit in any domestic market disturbance.

“The next few weeks are a busy political period in China, and many major beef trade partners will also be observing major holidays in December, so it could be that everyone needs the extra weeks for finalising the investigation,” a China trade source said.

Chinese authorities have ramped-up policy support for the livestock sector this year. In July, an agriculture ministry official said that beef cattle farming had been “generally profitable” for three consecutive months.

Last Friday, the ministry said it would aim to consolidate and expand the effects of support measures for beef cattle while promoting a rapid recovery in dairy cow production.

Domestic Chinese cattle prices held steady at 25.6 yuan per kilogram this week, up from 23.7 yuan during the same period last year.