Category: Topics

SPS and Food Safety Issues Likely to be Central to US/UK Trade Negotiations

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Summary
Ensuring the UK moves away from restrictive EU SPS requirements is likely to be central to the post-Brexit US-UK trade agreement negotiations. If the UK begins to move away from EU SPS and food safety control systems in relations with the US, this could open up new opportunities for ACP exporters whose market position is coming under increasing pressure from the EU’s new Plant Health Regulation, which is likely to come into force only after the UK is no longer part of the EU Customs Union and Single Market. While the citrus sector is the most obvious area where the ACP would have an interest in initiating dialogue with the UK over the SPS import requirements to be applied in the post Brexit period, a review of the UK’s Plant Health Information Portal suggests the initiation of an dialogue on the UK’s future SPS import requirements could prove useful in a range of other areas where increasingly strict EU wide import requirements are being imposed. Read more “SPS and Food Safety Issues Likely to be Central to US/UK Trade Negotiations”

Is long term EU sugar demand set to fall even more dramatically?

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Summary
There is growing evidence that taxes on the sugar content of beverages are having a proportional effect in reducing sugar consumption. This, along with new technological innovations which could see a similar reduced sugar consumption trend take hold in the food products sector, suggests ACP sugar exporters need to find new high sugar consumption growth markets. This will be complicated by the ongoing efforts of EU sugar companies to similarly identify new market opportunities for sugar exports, efforts which will be given an added stimulus by a ‘no-deal’ Brexit. Read more “Is long term EU sugar demand set to fall even more dramatically?”

Growth in Fairtrade sales in France good news for St Lucia but shift to dual certification is a constraint

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Summary
Fairtrade banana sales in France have grown rapidly following the ‘sourcing decisions by major supermarket chains’. St Lucian exporters are now seeking to target the French Fairtrade banana market in light of the Brexit related uncertainties. However the consumer trend towards dual certified Fairtrade/Organic bananas poses challenges for St Lucian exporters, given the absence of treatments for Black Sigatoka (black leaf streak) in wet tropical regions which are accepted by organic certifiers. This suggests the UK market will remain of considerable importance. This highlights the need for CARIFORUM leaders need to launch a political dialogue with UK on the need to retain both existing MFN banana sector tariff in the longer term and existing quota ceilings on reduced tariff access, determined on a pro-rata basis through the apportionment of existing bilaterally negotiated EU banana TRQs between the UK and EU27 market. In addressing the TRQ apportionment issue CARIFORUM leaders could usefully ally with political leaders in African banana exporting countries, who would be most severely impacted by the disruptions on EU27 markets which would follow on from any mismanagement of the apportionment of existing EU bilaterally negotiated banana TRQs. Read more “Growth in Fairtrade sales in France good news for St Lucia but shift to dual certification is a constraint”

EU Urged to Continue to Use High Tariffs to Protect EU Egg Sector

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Summary
A WUR report suggests the EU egg sector would face serious competitiveness challenges from imports without continued high levels of tariff protection. While this is justified on the basis of the high regulatory standards applied in the EU, even in the absence of higher EU regulatory standards major 3rd country egg exporters would still enjoy significant cost advantages. The contradiction between the EU’s continued use of a combination of high tariffs and quantitative restrictions on imports to regulate the EU egg market and the EU’s inclusion of provisions in trade agreements with ACP countries which seek to ban the use of quantitative restriction on imports from the EU needs to be recognised and addressed through continuing to flexibly interpret and enforce such commitments in trade with ACP countries. ACP governments need to be allowed to continue to use a range of trade policy tools in trade with the EU (including quantitative restrictions) where patterns of EU exports threaten national sector development strategies and aspirations. Read more “EU Urged to Continue to Use High Tariffs to Protect EU Egg Sector”

Uganda Takes Steps to Improve Traceability Around SPS Export Controls

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Summary
Steps to register exporters of horticulture products subject to stricter SPS requirements constitute a first step in ensuring continued access to the EU market. However ensuring new systems are effectively operated will be critical. It remains to be seen whether the resources can be mobilised in Uganda to enhance the effectiveness of the new regulatory framework being established. This is likely to prove critical to whether or not the recent growth in Ugandan horticulture exports to the EU can be sustained. Read more “Uganda Takes Steps to Improve Traceability Around SPS Export Controls”

Ghanaian Pre-emptive Export Ban on Chilli Peppers, Aubergines and other Leafy Vegetables May Be Just the Beginning

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Ghanaian Pre-emptive Export Ban on Chilli Peppers, Aubergines and other Leafy Vegetables May Be Just the Beginning

Summary

In the face of increasingly strict EU SPS implementing regulations the Ghanaian government has introduced  a pre-emptive export ban on leafy vegetables. A comprehensive system based approach to pest controls is urgently needed in Ghana, with the South African Phytclean electronic compliance database scheme potentially offering a model for private sector initiatives and private/public sector partnership. Initiating a dialogue with the UK authorities in the context of on-going Continuity Agreement negotiations, on future UK SPS controls, could prove of value in the face of increasingly strict EU SPS controls. In a range of areas, given UK agro-climatic conditions and production conditions the UK authorities assess risks far lower than the EU as whole for a range of fruit and vegetable products of export interest to ACP countries. Securing a reduction in these UK-only SPS controls in line with agro-climatic conditions in the UK could open up new market opportunities for Ghanaian exporters. Read more “Ghanaian Pre-emptive Export Ban on Chilli Peppers, Aubergines and other Leafy Vegetables May Be Just the Beginning”

COLEACP Warning Highlights New EU Requirements for Retaining Access to EU Market for Chilli and Pepper Exports

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Summary
COLEACP is offering support to ACP producers of chillies and pepper in getting to grips with new EU documentation requirements related to effective treatment against False Codling Moth infestations. While such initiatives are welcome the increasing commercial costs of compliance is likely to progressively squeeze smaller scale producers out of EU market supply chains. This is likely to be compounded by the ongoing EU review of the acceptable minimum residue levels for pesticides applied to a range of fruit and vegetable imports. Read more “COLEACP Warning Highlights New EU Requirements for Retaining Access to EU Market for Chilli and Pepper Exports”

South Africa-EU CBS Dispute Takes a New Twist

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Summary
The discovery of the Citrus Black Spot (CBS) fungal infection in citrus imports from Tunisia could prove a game changer in terms of South African efforts to secure a reduction of the EU’s commercially costly CBS control requirements. This is likely to give added important to discussions with the UK on its’ future SPS control arrangements to be applied under ‘no-deal’ Brexit Continuity Agreements. Removing controls on a citrus specific infection in a context where the UK has no commercial citrus production, alongside a lifting of TRQ restrictions on South African duty free access to the UK market, could help unlock the currently stalled UK-SADC EPA Continuity Agreement negotiations. This would be particularly the case if such a move signalled the UK governments’ willingness to respond more broadly to the changed trade realities which a ‘no-deal’ Brexit will give rise to. Read more “South Africa-EU CBS Dispute Takes a New Twist”

EU Formally Challenges Application of SACU Safeguard Duties in the Poultry Sector

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Summary
The EC has initiated a process leading to the establishment of an arbitration panel to rule on the validity of safeguard measures taken against EU poultry meat imports under the EU-SADC Group EPA. While many of the EC’s objections are technically correct they ignore the wider context of the evolution of EU poultry meat exports, to which tariff reduction and ‘tariff standstill’ commitments contained in the pre-existing EU-South Africa TDCA made a unique contribution prior to the introduction of SPS related import restrictions in December 2016. With the progressive lifting of these restrictions, the longer term structural trend towards increasing EU exports of poultry meat to South Africa is beginning to re-assert itself. This needs to be seen against the background of concerns a ‘no deal’ Brexit could lead to a huge surge in EU27 poultry meat exports to extra-EU markets. In this context the current EC action can be seen as part of EU ‘no-deal’ Brexit preparations.  As such this raises the spectre of the aggressive pursuit by the EC of the full implementation of nominal EPA commitments, so as to open up new market possibilities for EU27 export sectors facing the prospect of severe trade and market disruptions under a ‘no-deal’ outcome to the ongoing Brexit process. Read more “EU Formally Challenges Application of SACU Safeguard Duties in the Poultry Sector”

Low EU sugar prices lead to calls for greater market transparency

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Summary
EU sugar production estimates have been revised down, with the prospect of a greater market balance and some price recovery emerging. However a ‘no-deal’ Brexit could push 550,000 tonnes of EU27 white sugar back onto the EU27 market, exerting a downward pressure on EU27 sugar prices. In contrast shortages of sugar would be likely to emerge on the UK market which would increase demand for imports of both raw cane sugar and refined sugar from preferred suppliers as well as an increase in UK sugar prices. With spot market prices currently above contracted sugar prices ACP exporters may need to re-evaluate their marketing strategies. However not only is their uncertainty over the basis of the UK’s departure from the EU but also over which existing trade agreements the UK will succeed in ‘rolling over’ by November 2019. The EC is busy preparing for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit in the sugar sector. The ACP Ambassadorial Working Group on Sugar should initiate a dialogue with the EC on the nature of these preparations and the likely implications for ACP sugar producers, given the profound effects EU policy measures can have on the functioning of the EU sugar market. Read more “Low EU sugar prices lead to calls for greater market transparency”