Falling demand from Chinese buyers has sent Magway region cattle prices into a slump.
Cattle farmers at Magway’s Myothit cattle market have reported a price drop of as much as MMK 300,000 per animal, with fewer buyers than ever, reported Mizzima magazine. Normally farmers can sell their cattle for MMK 1.3 to 1.5 million, but this year farmers are selling their animals for as little as MMK 1 million each.
Magway’s cattle market is affected by the change in seasons, with foreign buyers most active during the summer months, the Mizzima report pointed out. During the fall and winter months, farmers trade livestock among themselves as often as they sell to foreign buyers. But current prices are low even for the season. “Cattle trading is mostly not good as the cattle prices are sluggish and Chinese buyers barely come at present. Dairy cows are traded more at present rather than draft animals,” one farmer, Kyaw Htoo from Magway’s Myothit Township, told Mizzima.
Despite the lack of Chinese buyers in the Magway market, Chinese demand for beef overall seems to be holding steady. Chinese imports of cattle from the United States has remained steady despite the ongoing trade war between those two countries, according to a recent report by Reuters. This development makes Magway beef an unusual case in Myanmar’s agriculture industry. For other agricultural products, the trade war has led to even greater demand from China. The Myanmar Rice Federation, for example, recently signed an MOU with China to export 250,000 tonnes of rice.
