• The Swine Working Group has met for the first time.
• The meeting was attended by authorities of the Government of Córdoba and representatives of the entire production chain.
• Pork is currently the most widely consumed meat in the world.

ProCórdoba Agency held the first meeting of the Swine Working Group, in which key players of this production chain in Córdoba discussed existing challenges, priorities, and opportunities to jointly outline actions to improve exports.

The meeting, chaired by ProCórdoba Agency's president Pablo De Chiara, was attended by authorities from the Ministry of Bioagroindustry; the Secretariat of Science and Technology; the Customs Brokers Center - Córdoba Office; the Association of Meat Processors, Packers and Industrial Producers of the Province of Córdoba (AFIC); the National Service of Agri-Food Health and Quality (SENASA); and the Oncativo Pork Cluster. Also present were representatives of the Córdoba Chamber of Foreign Trade, Córdoba Customs office, the Córdoba Association of Freight Forwarders, and various meat packing plants in the province.

On the occasion, De Chiara said, "Based on business intelligence, dialog between the actors that are part of a chain is key to establish priorities, the different possible courses of action, and the strategy to follow from now on. That is why we called this meeting, which involves a great challenge. The idea is to engage in meaningful discussions in order to set out concrete measures to be taken. These ideas should arise not from one-to-one conversations, but from collective intelligence. We have to be assertive, clear, and very concise in the paths we take so that they have the greatest possible impact and contribute to the ultimate goal, which is to improve, promote and boost pork exports in the province."

Daniel Urcia, executive director of AFIC, explained, "I believe that the pork production chain was a great choice, because it is undergoing growth and has a great future. We will not see immediate results, but as time goes by, I'm certain that it will become one of the most important productive activities in Córdoba. We have our work cut out for us. There is a domestic market that has grown and will surely continue to expand, because pork is already being incorporated to the diet. But having an external market always helps to increase production. We have to work on opening health markets."

The meeting was born as part of the INex - Intelligence for Export program, which seeks to promote dialog between key players and representatives of each productive sector of the province to design strategic actions based on needs assessment, in order to drive the internationalization of SMEs in Córdoba.