The growth of China as a nation will offer as many opportunities as threats to the industry, according to Jeffrey Rosensweig, a professor at the Goizueta Business School in Atlanta.

China, a country of 1.3 billion people, has an economy roughly the same size as the UK, but its annual per capita rise in real GDP over the last 20 years has averaged out at 8.5 per cent and continues to increase.

Although this is due to greater productivity and therefore higher production volumes, the Chinese are gradually able to afford to change their eating habits. “They are able to move up the food chain and to afford and demand fresh produce,” said Rosensweig, at this week’s PMA Fresh Summit. Despite predicting a slight slowdown in Chinese growth, he added that it will still far outstrip the upward curve in any of the other major world economies.

Although it will undoubtedly export more of its fresh produce, China will become a net importer - of all products - in the next three years, and, as its domestic market continues to boom, the opportunities to export fresh produce into the market are likely to increase, he said.

Rosensweig added that the world’s population increases by 100 every 46 seconds. Countries with advanced economies will be responsible for just 2.4 of these births, while, despite its one-child per family policy, the Chinese population will be boosted by an average 9.1 new babies every 46 seconds.

This pales in comparison with India, which is projected to introduce 19.9 babies into the world in the same time frame, while other Asian countries (29) and Africa, in spite of its AIDS problems (30.8) will also experience massive population increases, he said.

Topics