Pork: Modelling the impact of the UK-Switzerland FTA

The impact of the UK-Switzerland trade deal was examined for pork, looking at the changes expected after the deal comes into force. This aspect of the modelling work assumes all other factors, except the FTA, remain the same.

Key points

• The model suggests that UK pork exports to Switzerland will increase by about 24 t (an increase of 43% in percentage terms on the baseline used within the model) 

• There will be no change in exports from Switzerland to the UK 

• The model predicts that changes to production and price will be relatively small (less than 1%) 

Summary of findings

The chosen network for pork consists of the UK, EU, USA, New Zealand and Australia and Switzerland.

The EU and the USA are significant exporters of pork. The UK is a net importer of pork but does export some pork products to New Zealand and the EU. New Zealand and Australia are both net importers of pork. Switzerland imports and exports a relatively small amount of pork as domestic production satisfies consumption.  

The model predicts a 43% increase in pork exports to Switzerland in a fully liberalised trade scenario, a rise of about 24 t.

To put it into context, the UK currently exports 214 Kt of pork each year, with 56 t going to Switzerland.

This is only a minor increase compared to all UK pork exports, but the majority of pork consumed in Switzerland is produced in the country.  

There is little to no change in the domestic marketplace, as shown in Table 1. 

Table 1. Detailed pork results 

Considerations 

The analysis is based on full liberalisation. Switzerland is a highly protectionist country with high tariffs on goods especially meat and dairy. The enhanced trade deal negotiations will be focused in reducing these tariffs for UK goods.  

There are a number of caveats to these results. Like other economic models, the trade network model is not a prediction or forecast and assumes all factors other than UK accession to CPTPP remain equal.

This is unrealistic in a global economy but is an essential assumption for modelling due to the complexity of predicting future changes.  What the network model can do, though, is examine specific ‘what if’ scenarios, and this is something that AHDB will be analysing going forward.  

Like other economic models, the trade network model treats all products in a category as homogenous. In reality, we know that there are varying levels of demand for different cuts of pork in each market.

The model treats all cuts as the same, and therefore the impact of carcase balance must be considered alongside the results. As such, our interpretation considers the modelling results within the context of the other analysis and findings. 

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Economic modelling of the beef, sheep, dairy and pork sectors