The U.S. on Tuesday dropped barriers to imports of Brazilian pork after roughly a year-and-a-half of working to guarantee the meat will comply with sanitary standards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized Brazilian inspectors as capable of approving slaughterhouses in Santa Catarina state to export raw pork to the U.S., Brazil's Agriculture Ministry said in a press release.

Cooked or processed pork from some other Brazilian states may also be exported via meatpacking plants in Santa Catarina, which the Agriculture Ministry says has been free of foot-and-mouth disease since 2001.

Pedro de Camargo Neto, president of pork-industry association Abipecs, said the USDA's decision "finalizes a long process of authorization for Brazilian exports." While Neto doesn't foresee "large volumes" of pork being shipped to the U.S., he said the measure represents an "indisputable seal of quality."

"Now it's just up to the Agriculture Ministry to tell us which slaughterhouses meet the norms," Neto added.

The U.S. agreed in June 2010 to allow pork imports as part of a broader pact to resolve a dispute over U.S. cotton subsidies. Later in 2010, the USDA recognized Santa Catarina as free of foot-and-mouth disease, leading the local pork industry to predict shipments to the U.S. would begin soon.

But the USDA remained concerned that Brazil didn't have enough federal inspectors to monitor the state's meatpacking plants, the Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday.

With those concerns now resolved, the local authorities expect to clear exports from the first six slaughterhouses this week.

"We will now try to expand pork exports to China, open the Japanese market and resume sales to [South Korea]," said Agriculture Minister Mendes Ribeiro Filho in the press release.

In 2011, Brazil exported 516,419 metric tons of pork, down 4.4% from the previous year, with the biggest destinations being Hong Kong and Russia, according to Abipecs. The value of the exports rose 7% last year to $1.43 billion.

-By Paul Kiernan, Dow Jones Newswires; (+55)11-3544-7074, paul.kiernan@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 10, 2012 16:03 ET (21:03 GMT)