The restrictions were introduced by the Rural Development Ministry and affects all fresh or frozen pork products from Germany. Not only has consumer interest in pork products diminished, but the price of pork has fallen 20%-30% across the board.

As the scandal widens in Germany, the Hungarian government is taking steps to ensure that all precautions are taken to prevent contaminated meat from entering the local market. The implications could provide a beacon of hope for local pork producers who have, so far, been unable to compete with the prices offered by larger, foreign, producers.

The current restrictions are to be extended, and in effect, made permanent. Now all imported meat products will have to be tested before they are allowed onto the shelves of Hungarian stores.  This will add an extra overhead for the importers and will drive the price of these products up. Some economists believe that this will level the economic playing field and will allow Hungarian meat producers to be more competitive.

The larger meat producers say that these restrictions do nothing but apply an extra tax to importers and would like the government to reduce the restrictions, if not remove them completely, because over the short-term it means that consumers will be punished in their pocketbooks for mistakes made elsewhere.

Germany currently important 50,000 tons of pork into Hungary, which is almost half of all the imports. This huge wave of imports is connected to the state of domestic pork producers.  While in 1998 there were more than 10 million pigs on Hungarian soil, through years of mismanagement and a lack of government support, there are now fewer than 3 million pigs reared in the country.

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