December 24, 2012

EU and Singapore conclude FTA for meat access

The EU has concluded a free trade agreement with Singapore, which should ease market access for its meat exporters and improve the Union's geographical indication intellectual property protection for traditional meat products.

Singapore will introduce a new register for geographical indications (GIs), which will grant protection to regionally-specific and recognised meat made in Europe, for products such as Parma ham - one of the EU's most valuable GIs on the Singaporean market. This register would help protect EU producers in a country where meat products face considerable competition from non-EU producers by preventing them using names such as Parma ham in Singapore.

World trade data shows the EU sold US$80 million worth of meat to Singapore in 2011, up from US$63 million in 2010. More detailed data shows there is room for growth in certain sub-sectors: EU exports of fresh and chilled sheep meat (with bones in, excluding lamb and carcasses) generated Singapore sales last year of US$151,085 compared to US$64,740 the year before.

The EU will remove tariffs on all imports from Singapore for the next five years, according to a communiqué from Singapore's ministry of trade and industry.