A trade mission led by Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry, together with MGAP, INAC and Inale, is scheduled to visit Southeast Asia in mid-August, while the Mercosur-European Union agreement is beginning to deliver better-than-expected signals for Uruguay’s chilled beef exports.
Deputy Foreign Minister Valeria Csukasi confirmed on Valor Agregado that she will travel in mid-August to Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand alongside representatives from MGAP, INAC and Inale. Thailand was added to the agenda after initially being left out. The mission has a dual objective: advancing sanitary market access negotiations at the government level while also identifying private-sector partners capable of operating locally.
“A private-sector player is needed to push and advocate politically so that we can remain at the forefront of the agenda,” she said.
Regarding Thailand, Csukasi acknowledged that tariffs remain high but noted that countries dependent on imports often seek alternative mechanisms such as quotas or targeted tariff reductions. “Opportunities may emerge,” she said.
As for Indonesia, she highlighted that the country hosts the headquarters of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the Indo-Pacific trade bloc that Uruguay formally applied to join in February.
MGAP’s Director of Animal Industry, Diego Domínguez, provided further details on sanitary negotiations in the region. Speaking on the same program, he said Indonesia had notified Uruguay that it would begin the evaluation process for beef and sheepmeat imports in July. The procedure starts with a country risk assessment and questionnaires for the veterinary authority, followed by an on-site audit.
“We recently made progress with dairy products following an audit conducted at the end of last year, and we expect to move forward shortly with beef and sheepmeat approval this year,” he said.
In Vietnam, discussions remain at the documentation stage, while all required paperwork has already been submitted to Thailand. In the Philippines, where 22 plants were approved last year for beef exports, efforts continue to secure access for sheepmeat. Malaysia, which requires halal slaughter for 100% of production, currently has two approved establishments, with authorities seeking to expand that number.
EU agreement performing better than expected
Regarding the quotas established under the Mercosur-EU agreement, Csukasi acknowledged that the absence of quota allocation among Mercosur members during the first year of implementation was not what Uruguay had hoped for prior to the trade deal taking effect. Nevertheless, she expressed a relatively positive view of Uruguay’s performance under the arrangement.
“Uruguay is doing things very well, and the private sector knows the European market extremely well,” she said.
In her view, business opportunities can still be captured even without the quota-sharing mechanism that Mercosur had sought.
“Uruguay is not as disadvantaged as it might have been,” she summarized.
She cited honey as an example of a better-than-expected outcome.
“When we do the final calculation, it will be above its historical average, whereas initially it seemed Argentina would take everything,” she said.
Csukasi also noted that the quotas ultimately agreed upon represent only about one-fifth of what Mercosur had originally requested. While the volumes are not large enough to significantly alter market dynamics, they remain valuable because of the tariff reductions they provide.
“In chilled beef, Uruguay is performing better than we could have expected,” she said.
For the first allocation window (May-June), 1,512 tons of chilled beef and 1,237 tons of frozen beef were made available under a first-come, first-served system.
