South Africa's chicken wars - anti-dumping, safeguards, SPS

What is it about?

South Africa’s poultry industry has been fighting a war on imports since 1999. The battles in this war include the use of anti-dumping, significantly increased customs duties, SPS measures in the form of full country-bans against outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), and a free trade agreement safeguard measure against imports from the European Union (EU). Anti-dumping duties against the United States have been in place since 1999 and were recently extended to 2029, while anti-dumping duties are also in place against imports from Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. Customs duties on whole birds have been increased from 27% to 82%, and for frozen bone-in portions from 18% to 62%. Once there is an HPAI outbreak in a country, all imports from that country are banned without the application of regionalism, and the ban sometimes remains in place as long as two years after the outbreak has been brought under control. South Africa also imposed a free trade agreement safeguard for four years on poultry imported from the EU. All of these measures have combined to make poultry one of the most protected industries in South Africa.

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Why is it important?

This article looks at how over a period of 25 years South Africa has fairly and unfairly protected its chicken industry against imports from the US, South America and Europe, using increasing duties, anti-dumping measures, free trade agreement safeguard measures and SPS measures, and often in violation of WTO provisions.

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