Uruguay will have a Chinese plant to process gallstones from the region

The Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, Alfredo Fratti, welcomed this Saturday a recent agreement with China that will allow Uruguay to process bovine gallstones from its own cattle as well as from Argentina and Brazil, for export to the Asian country as an input for its traditional medicine.

He announced it during the closing ceremony of the 120th edition of Expo Prado, the country’s main agri-industrial and livestock fair, where he said that the president of the National Meat Institute, Gastón Scayola, currently in China as part of an official mission, was the one who informed him of the agreement.

“According to the information he passed on to me yesterday (Scayola), they will set up in Uruguay to process the gallstones of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil,” Fratti explained, emphasizing that this is a “high-value” input for the Chinese.

“A kilo of gallstones is worth US$ 250,000 because it goes to traditional Chinese medicine, not to any other product. They said it, so I can repeat it,” said the minister, joking that “it seems” that cattle do not have gallstones but “with that value they will appear.”

Source: Efe