The U.S. Meat Export Federation said shippers to China, the third biggest buyer of U.S. pork, intend to comply with a new requirement that products have test reports showing they are free of the additive ractopamine.

Bloomberg News reports that the group also continues to press China, the largest consumer of pork, to delay today’s implementation date because exporters weren’t given enough notice and some shipments already in transit won’t meet the requirement, Joel Haggard, the group’s Asia-Pacific vice president, said by e-mail yesterday.

China’s quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine delivered the notice to U.S. agencies in Beijing last week, Haggard said. Russia recently banned all imports of beef, pork and turkey from the U.S. because of concerns of meat that contained traces of the feed additive, used to add lean muscle in hogs.

Source: Bloomberg