POULTRY FARMERS: HELP!

Domestic poultry farmers, who have long resisted Government’s requests to bring down the price of their chicken to have it more in line with what Government sees as nearer production costs, are today appealing for a “breathing space to achieve international competitiveness” following on an 86 percent to 40 percent reduction in the import surcharge on chicken and turkey parts. The Poultry Association of Trinidad and Tobago has neither indicated the time it would need to “achieve” its now declared goal of “international competitiveness,” nor how long it has been seeking to do this. Unfortunately, there are many Trinidadians and Tobagonians who live below the poverty line and who may experience difficulty both with the present cost of domestic chicken on the market shelves and the chicken for which producers request a breathing space.

The poor have never been in a position to ask for any breathing space, and because of their relatively low purchasing power are not even able to flex any economic muscle by way, for example, of a withdrawal of consumer enthusiasm. At the other end of the chicken price equation, however, should the argument of the Poultry Association be that foreign chicken leg quarters were being dumped on developing countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, at less than 40 percent of production cost, then Government would be tacitly condoning this dumping, however unintentionally. Indeed, the reduction of the import surcharge from 86 to 40 percent on chicken parts which was announced by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Mr Patrick Manning, in his Budget Speech would have uncomfortable moral and international implications.

Two questions arise, however. Why is it only now that the import surcharge, which takes effect from November 1, has been announced, that the Poultry Association has seen it necessary to speak of dumping? In addition, why has it not lodged a formal complaint of dumping with the Anti-Dumping Unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry under the Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act No 11 of 1992 or Act No 23 of 1995 which amends and updates Act No 11? Additionally, the World Trade Organisation, of which this country is a member has carefully laid down Anti-Dumping and Subsidy codes to which Trinidad and Tobago has long adhered. What the Poultry Association is inferring, providing its claim that foreign chicken producers are dumping their leg quarters at 40 percent below production cost is correct, is that Government is actively condoning it, and this yet further by reducing the import surcharge.

Surely the Association must be aware that should it lodge an Anti-Dumping complaint with the relevant authority Government would be placed in the position where it would have to cancel the planned reduction of the import surcharge, or the Association could then argue that scores of jobs were under active threat both by foreign dumping and Government’s support of it. Unfortunately, we find it difficult to accept that the Poultry Association with such a powerful trump card in its possession was prepared to go to Government cap in hand to beg for “some breathing space to achieve international competitiveness,” even as it insisted that the “competitiveness” of the foreign chicken producers had been achieved and continued to be achieved through dumping!