South Africa sees quotas as solution to poultry-import issue
South Africa hopes poultry producers will agree on import quotas in the next few weeks, preventing their products from being blocked in the U.S., Trade Minister Rob Davies said.
Local producers and their U.S. counterparts have yet to reach a deal, Davies told reporters Thursday in Johannesburg. He will travel to the U.S. next month. South Africa could lose out on preferential access to the U.S. for poultry through the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, if an agreement on quotas isn’t reached.
“They still haven’t found each other, but we have agreed on timetables to accelerate the work and reach an accommodation,” Davies said. “I think that if we do that, we’d be in a win-win situation.”
South Africa offered to raise the annual tonnage allowable free of anti-dumping duties by 50 percent for the U.S., Johannesburg-based Business Day newspaper reported March 11. This was rejected by American producers at a meeting in Washington.
If South Africa loses preferential access to the U.S. through AGOA, then U.S. poultry won’t access the South African market, so there “will be other losses as well and losses relate to the credibility of AGOA,” Davies said.