2003 - August 26th at Ljubljana, Slovenia

12th IHEO Meeting

The meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia was a well attended meeting with the participation of 36 delegates from 13 exporter countries. The Chinese delegation wasn’t able to attend the meeting because of the SARS, but the Bee Products Sub Chamber of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce sent a presentation. On behalf of China, the IHEO president Mr. Eduard Planken presented it during the meeting.

On this meeting, Mr. Eduard Planken was reelected President for two more years. The secretary Mr. Arno Maier, who developed an excellent work in the organization during 6 years, indicated his wish to step down from the charge to let someone else take up the role. Mrs. Ingrid Beutelspacher from Mexico was elected.

During the morning meeting, the attendees had the pleasure of hearing country presentations from Argentina, Brazil, China and the president’s report on the world honey market:

Over the last two years, since the last meeting, two main events occurred in the world trade of honey. Firstly, several major producing countries selling into the world market reported lower crops as the result of El Niño. Countries like Australia and Canada were particularly affected, with Australia the hardest hit going from being an exporter to a net importer just to meet domestic needs.

Then the Chinese Chloramphenicol issue broke only to be followed later by product coming from the same source classified as UF (Ultra Filtered) honey. Many saw the UF honey as a Chinese quick fix to strip out the problem of Chloramphenicol. Legally UF honey is not honey by the new definition, as the pollens have been stripped out.

While all this was going on, Argentina was suffering with its economic problems plus the continued US Department of Commerce’s anti-dumping actions against both it and China. The effect of residues and the loss of markets is the main reason why we see the high prices that honey is traded at currently (up to 2.800 USD/MT CFR).

In the afternoon, there was a joint meeting with FEEDEM and honey packers from USA and Japan. Mainly we discussed about quality issues.

Photos