SA set to lose US meat trade deal

SOUTH Africa looks set to lose lucrative duty-free access for its agricultural exports to the US after officials of both governments failed to reach agreement on outstanding trade issues in a meeting on Thursday.

US and SA trade and veterinary experts held a last-ditch telephonic conference to try and remove the last barriers preventing the importing of US chicken, pork and beef into South Africa.

This means they will almost certainly miss tomorrow’s deadline for removing the barriers.

SA exported $176 million (R2.8 billion) worth of agricultural products to the US last year. It is not clear how much our exports will be reduced by the loss of African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) benefits, but it could be a lot as profit margins on agricultural product sales in the US are slim and so the lack of import duties makes a big difference.

SA has allowed virtually no US chicken, pork or beef imports into the local market for several years, partly through anti-dumping duties and partly through health restrictions.

In June officials from both sides agreed partly to lift the anti-dumping duties on US chicken imports, to allow a quota of 65 000 tons a year to be imported.

But the South African government continued to block chicken imports anyway because of outbreaks of avian flu in parts of the US and later because of concerns about salmonella infection. It has also been citing concerns about diseases in pork and beef to block imports of those products.

On November 5, US President Barack Obama announced that the US would suspend SA’s Agoa agricultural benefits tomorrow unless Pretoria lifted the ban on US meat imports before then.

After that negotiations between officials intensified to try to meet the deadline. In November South Africa and US veterinary authorities signed a health protocol agreement which dealt with the avian flu issue by allowing imports of US chicken from parts of the US not affected by the disease.

But then an issue arose over salmonella infection in chicken and negotiations also continued over beef and pork issues.

Last month SA Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said he was confident the outstanding issues would be resolved before tomorrow’s deadline.

But other official sources said that though veterinary experts from both sides had made progress over the past few days, they had failed to resolve all the outstanding issues around chicken, pork and beef imports and so the suspension of SA’s agricultural Agoa benefits now seemed inevitable.

US officials have complained in the past that they don’t understand South Africa’s health concerns as the US exports chicken, beef and pork to more than 100 other countries in the world without a problem. – ANA