China paid a total of $4.7bn across all industry products, providing half of the export revenue.
Beef accounted for $3.8bn, led by a huge 30% increase in sales to China, totalling $1.55bn and representing 41% of all beef sales in the financial year to June 2020.
The United States fell to 30% share of beef exports, worth $1.16bn, followed by Japan at $217 million, up 19% on the previous year.
The value of sheepmeat exports increased by 4% to $4bn and China took $1.7bn or 43% of sales, up 23% on the previous year.
In terms of weight, China took over 50% of sheepmeat exports, at 209,000 tonnes.
The United Kingdom was a distant second, buying lamb worth $413m, which was 10% of the total.
The volume to the UK fell by 11% so the average price achieved was $10.83/kg, up from $9.72 the previous year.
The US (9% share), Germany (7%) and Netherlands (5%) filled places three to six.
Co-products accounted for 17% of the meat industry’s export earnings at $1.6bn, led by casings and tripe and followed by edible offals, prepared and processed products, meat and bone meal, blood products and tallow.
There was a 30% fall in the export value of hides and skins but Italy remained the number one destination with 40%.
MIA chair John Loughlin says African swine fever in China dominated most of the year until covid-19 took over.
He praised the quality of the industry’s response to covid, saying that restrictions and physical distancing coupled with drought in many regions could have led to animal welfare problems, but these were averted.
There were no reported cases of covid-19 transmission in a NZ meat processing site, in contrast to other countries where meat plants were infection hot spots and people died.
Resilience and flexibility characterised the industry’s response and Loughlin praised the work of trade officials.
Although he was not so happy about the climate change framework of permanent land conversion from sheep and beef cattle to carbon storage in pine forest.
“It means emitters are compensating for their environmental problems rather than solving them,” he said.
“Large scale afforestation will result in fewer livestock processed and jeopardise the viability of plants and jobs.”
The industry accounts for 92,000 full-time jobs or nearly 5% of the national workforce.
