FairPlay says chicken importers are making contradictory claims over South Africa’s chicken import tariffs.
In a letter in Business Day, FairPlay founder Francois Baird took issue with Paul Matthew, CEO of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE).
Matthew had said in a Business Day article that South Africa’s poultry industry can only be “more productive, competitive and export-orientated” if anti-dumping duties on chicken imports are removed.
However, AMIE had recently argued that because the poultry industry is profitable and competitive, import tariffs are no longer needed.
“Matthew cannot have it both ways. Either it can grow, as it is doing now with tariffs and anti-dumping duties in place, as AMIE acknowledges, or it cannot grow while those remain, as Matthew tells Business Day.”
Baird also pointed out that AMIE was a signatory to the poultry master plan.
“That plan aims to curb chicken imports, act against illegal imports through the anti-dumping duties Matthew wants removed, and produce more chicken for the domestic and export markets.”
Matthew’s article was part of an AMIE campaign against the renewal of anti-dumping duties on chicken imports from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
“He does not concede that there might be a reason to renew those anti-dumping duties, which were imposed because a flood of dumped imports harmed the local industry, and can be renewed if lifting them would restore that harm.
“And nowhere does he say that if import tariffs are removed, chicken importers will make a huge amount of money,” Baird concluded.
