May 16, 2006

 

Poultry producers allege EU dumping poultry in Ghana

 

While UK producers complain of cheap poultry imports affecting their livelihoods, African nations like Ghana are having their industries wiped out by cheap imports from the EU.

 

Poultry trading companies are proliferating in Ghana's capital of Accra, importing frozen poultry products from the EU in container loads.

 

The poultry import business is big, the products are cheap, people are buying and some importers are bringing in as many as about 12 containers a month, said Nana Frema Agyemang Ofori-Atta, managing director of the Beyeeman Freezing Company Limited, a poultry trading company.

 

Ghana's chicken imports, at 26,000 tonnes in 2002, has doubled to about 40,000 tonnes in two years, with most supplies coming from the European Union,  according to Allafrica.com.

 

Meanwhile, the domestic market, which supplied 95 percent of Ghana's poultry requirements in 1992, had dwindled to a paltry 11 percent in a decade.

 

Local poultry operators are puzzled why a chicken selling for between four pounds and five pounds in the UK could be sold at half the price in Ghana despite freight and handling charges.

 

Local producers charge that this could only happen because UK farmers are allowed to export surplus produce cheaply.

 

For hundreds of small-scale producers, the influx of poultry imports meant an exodus of poultry operators from the industry.

 

Foreign chickens have become popular as they are not only bigger but also cheaper.

 

While the poultry industry is affected by cheap products from the EU, its textile industry is undercut by cheap Chinese imports and its rice industry has been decimated in a similar fashion as well.  

 

Authorities have been reluctant to impose protectionist tariffs, saying local industries would be unable to meet the demands of the domestic market. For example, a 40 percent tariff on imported poultry products that was supposed to take effect in 2003 was never enforced.

 

According to the Third World Network, African countries can only meet the targets of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals of 2015 if their local industries are protected to foster economic growth.