According to Angel Manero Campos, Zhao Zenglian, vice-minister of the General Administration of Customs, is set to visit Lima on September 21. Zhao and others will inspect the production and processing of export-bound Peruvian dried fruit and grains.
Their aim is to assess whether the products comply with Chinese health regulations and whether local protocols must be updated.
If approved, the audited Peruvian companies could bring in an export volume of up to US$100 million for the Asian economic giant, Manero Campos said.
Peru hoped to “gain access” to the Chinese market for frozen fruits, pomegranates and pecans, he added.
Manero Campos said he expected China to recognise that Peru was free of foot-and-mouth disease, a viral infection commonly found in cattle and pigs and a main obstacle to exporting meat to China.
The Peruvian ministry’s announcement is one of a series of commitments made by Beijing and Lima in recent months.
It expands a US$23.15 billion bilateral trade relationship dominated by exports of Peruvian copper and other minerals to China, as computers and cars go the other way.
In 2023, Peru had a US$13 billion trade surplus with China, according to the General Administration of Customs.
A study published in March by the Andres Bello Foundation, a Colombia-based think tank, showed that Peruvian exports to China quadrupled between 2010, when the two countries signed a free-trade agreement, and last year.
In July, Manero Campos led an effort to secure sanitary protocols allowing Peru to export donkey meat and animal hides for textile processing.
Peru’s national agricultural health service stated in July it was studying how to comply with protocols relating to the maritime shipment of frozen fruit to allow the export of grapes to the Chinese market.
Manero Campos in April estimated that certifying Peruvian producers to export meat to China could bring in between “US$1 and US$3 billion in five years”.
