Panama’s beef exports which were helping to re-energize the agricultural industry and reached $10 million in six months last year have been halted by the coronavirus, which has killed over 11 hundred people and infected scores of thousands.

Aldo Mangravita, president of the Industrial Union of Panama (SIP) , said on Wednesday, February 12 that the Chinese authorities issued an alert and paralyzed the meat shipments, which disrupts the sale and slaughter of cattle in the country.

Panama has enabled, since last year, two plants to export beef to the Asian giant: Unión Ganadera, SA (Ungasa), operated by Carnes de Coclé, and Fortunato Mangravita, SA.

Fortunato has four containers of beef holding. 22,000  kilograms that cannot enter China. Two of them remain on the high seas until the ship in which they are transported is assigned a port. The other two are in Panama, in refrigerated containers.

Fortunato started meat exports to China on December 26. In the first shipment, 23 metric tons of frozen beef were sent for a value of $150,000.

Panama has enabled, since last year, two plants to export beef to the Asian giant: Unión Ganadera, SA (Ungasa), operated by Carnes de Coclé, and the company Fortunato Mangravita, SA

The latter has four containers with a capacity for 22.000 t kilograms of beef that cannot enter China. Two of them remain on the high seas until the ship in which they are transported is assigned a port. The other two are in Panama, in refrigerated containers.

Fortunato started meat exports to China on December 26. In that first shipment, 23 metric tons of frozen beef were sent for a value of $150,00.

"Everything is suspended until the shipping companies can continue transporting the products to China," Mangravita said.

José Antonio Halphen, manager of Meats of Coclé, said that his clients in China have asked them to suspend shipments of meat due to the fall in consumption.

"This is a recent market where there was an excellent growth rate and this epidemic is affecting us," said Halphen.

The export of beef from cattle in Panama totaled $32.2 million at the end of 2019, the an increase of 62.3%, compared to the same period of 2018.