The American pork industry is currently making strides towards its first-ever pork exports to India, as shared by an industry leader with lawmakers.

During a Congressional hearing, Randy Spronk, a pork producer from Minnesota, represented the National Pork Producers Council in his address.

“Currently, the US pork industry is working on exporting its first shipments of pork to India. While the threat of removing GSP benefits can induce countries to improve market access conditions for US pork, the possibility of being added to the eligibility list is another mechanism for countries to remove long-standing barriers,” he said.

GSP was successfully used as leverage to obtain market access for US pork producers in India, he said.

Earlier, Spronk said, India was the number one recipient of preferential trade benefits under the US GSP programme but restricted the import of many US agricultural products including pork.

“The list of restrictions was quite extensive but through the leverage created by GSP, the US government was able to successfully negotiate away a long list of issues,” he said.