The Philippines has approved the veterinary health certificates that Colombia negotiated for beef and pork, which allows Colombian meat plants to begin applying for Philippine import permits. The Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) announced the approval on September 30, 2026, according to Valora Analitik, and the Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism) followed with its own statement on October 1. The commerce ministry presented the approval as part of President Abelardo De La Espriella’s strategy to widen the destinations for Colombian exports.

The certificates do not by themselves put Colombian meat on Philippine shelves. Each establishment must still obtain import permits from Philippine authorities and show that it meets that country’s sanitary conditions before it can ship, El Espectador reported. The agriculture ministry said it would keep working with the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (Colombian Agricultural Institute, ICA), industry associations and producers to turn the sanitary approval into commercial shipments. Neither ministry’s statement gives a date for a first shipment.

Agriculture Minister Indalecio Dangond described the Philippines as “a market of more than 115 million consumers,” Portafolio reported. Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Mauricio Gómez Amín said in the ministry’s statement: “This is a national achievement that we celebrate, and it is the product of coordinated work between the public and private sectors.”

“It represents an important step for the diversification of Colombia’s exportable supply and the opening of new commercial opportunities in Asia.”

— Mauricio Gómez Amín, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism

Eleven plants already cleared

The certificates complete a process that advanced in June 2026, when the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture authorized 11 Colombian plants, seven for beef and four for pork, according to Valora Analitik and El Tiempo. The authorization followed an audit that Philippine inspectors carried out in Colombia from October 25 to November 9, 2025, in a process that involved the ICA and the Instituto Nacional de Vigilancia de Medicamentos y Alimentos (National Food and Drug Surveillance Institute, Invima). The authorization runs for an initial three years, El Tiempo reported.

The beef plants belong to Alimentos Cárnicos, the meat-processing business of Grupo Nutresa (BVC: NUTRESA); Friogan; Camagüey S.A.; Frigotún; Frigosinú; and Red Cárnica, which has two approved plants. The pork plants belong to Agropecuaria Aliar, Frigotún, Supercerdo Paisa and Central Ganadera, according to El Tiempo and El Colombiano.

Two different measures of the Philippine market

The commerce ministry said the Philippines bought about 750,000 tons of beef and pork from the rest of the world over the last four years, worth roughly $2.2 billion USD, citing UN Comtrade data. Figures from the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, cited by El Tiempo, put Philippine imports in 2025 alone at about 851,800 tons of pork and 207,400 tons of beef. The commerce ministry’s release does not explain how its four-year Comtrade figure was measured. Brazil is the largest outside supplier to the Philippine market, with more than 40% of shipments, El Tiempo reported.

Colombian beef exports are falling this year

The opening comes as Colombian beef shipments contract. Data from the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE), cited by El Espectador, show beef exports worth $77.8 million USD from January through July 2026, down 28.4% from $108.6 million USD in the same period of 2025. Volume fell 44.6%, from 24,853 tons to 13,775 tons.

The commerce ministry’s release reported much smaller figures for the same seven months: 474.1 tons of beef worth $3.3 million USD, shipped to Algeria, Chile, Lebanon, El Salvador, the United Arab Emirates, Curaçao and Venezuela, and 199.9 tons of pork worth $583,159 USD, all of it to Venezuela. The release does not explain which products those figures include or why they differ from DANE’s totals.

The decline follows growth in 2025. Beef exports reached $148.5 million USD that year, up 39.4% from $106.5 million USD in 2024, while volume rose from 24,768 tons to about 30,456 tons, according to Analdex, the Colombian foreign-trade association, as reported by Valora Analitik. China took 61.6% of that volume, followed by Russia, Algeria, Chile and El Salvador. Colombia gained access to China after the two countries agreed on a health protocol in 2023, based on Colombia’s status as free of foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination.

On the pork side, Colombia produced 663,875 tons in 2025, an increase of 9.1%, according to the pork producers’ association Porkcolombia, as cited by Valora Analitik. Colombia does not yet rank among the world’s large pork exporters, Valora Analitik noted, and the commerce ministry’s figures show only Venezuela buying Colombian pork in the first seven months of 2026.

Headline photo: Cuts of Colombian beef. (Photo: Loren Moss)