The South African poultry industry is taking the government to court in an attempt to force it to suspend the annual duty-free quota which allows 72 000 tonnes of dumped chicken imports into South Africa from the United States.
The quota was forced on South Africa in 2015 as a condition of renewing the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), which gave duty-free access to the US for South African goods, including automotive and agricultural products.
In effect, the quota allows America to dump chicken portions in South Africa below the cost of production, because it removes that anti-dumping duties that would otherwise apply.
However, the US AGOA legislation also specifies that, should South African industries lose any of the benefits they have enjoyed, then the duty-free chicken quota falls away.
That is the provision on which the SA Poultry Association (SAPA) is relying for its court challenge. The poultry industry contends that tariffs the Trump administration has applied to South African goods mean the quota should have been suspended since April last year.
“We are concerned about dumped product, because we can’t compete with that,” SAPA’s Izaak Breitenbach told the radio show Cape Talk.
The court application follows requests the industry has made to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTIC) for the nullification of the quota because of US tariffs. Breitenbach said the poultry industry has been unable to communicate with the government on the issue.
“We would have liked to discuss the matter with them, but we simply don’t get through to them,” he said.
Breitenbach also took issue with South African negotiators offering the 72 000-tonne quota in their trade talks with the US. He said the poultry industry had not been consulted, and it was being “sacrificed” in these negotiations.
