EU rejects SA’s dumping claims
• Imports percentage ‘too small to cause job losses’
The EU has rejected as false claims by local poultry producers that it is dumping bone-in-chicken portions onto the local market and causing widespread job losses in the industry.
Major poultry producers have shed jobs and closed plants because of what they call the flood of imports from the EU.
Total poultry imports represent about 26% of consumption, the South African Poultry Association (Sapa) says.
The EU delegation to SA has said the association is conducting a media campaign against EU poultry imports “alleging … the root cause of the job losses is the ongoing ‘dumping’ by the EU of chicken bone-in parts. This allegation is false.”
There was no dumping of EU chicken in SA. “If there had been, Sapa would have filed a complaint to the International Trade Administration Commission for dumping as they did in the past. They have not.”
The EU noted imports of EU bone-in chicken to SA in 2016 had not exceeded 200,000 tonnes, less than 10% of overall poultry consumption. It could not be “the main cause of the problems” facing the industry.
The outbreak of avian flu in a number of EU producer countries had resulted in a fall of more than 66% in EU exports of bone-in chicken in 2017.
CEO Kevin Lovell said Sapa had applied to Itac for safeguard duties rather than antidumping duties as the former applied to all EU countries including those not exporting chicken to SA, whereas an antidumping duty could be applied for only against the imports of one country.
Antidumping duties could be applied for if the safeguard duty Itac proposed was unsatisfactory. Itac has granted antidumping duties against Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, but Sapa says they are too low.
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies imposed a 13.9% safeguard duty on EU bone-in chicken portions in December and instructed Itac to investigate the issue and make a further recommendation, which is expected next month.
Sapa chairman Achmat Brinkhuis said the only reason all EU poultry-exporting countries to SA had not been found guilty of dumping was that World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules set a minimum threshold on the volumes exported before antidumping duties could be considered.
Actions would be launched against all EU countries who fell within the WTO thresholds, “all of whom are dumpers of dark meat”, Brinkhuis said.