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China Accuses Brazil of Dumping Chicken on Market
Brazil’s meat exporters have been dealt yet another blow as China launches anti-dumping measures against the country’s poultry sector.
China’s Minister of Commerce Minister Zhong Shan held talks with Brazil Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes in June
The move comes just two months after China and Brazil held talks over improving and increasing trade cooperation.
China’s Ministry of Commerce, MOFCOM, received a written petition for an anti-dumping investigation from the China Animal Agriculture Association in June into imports of broiler products from Brazil.
Following a review by MOFCOM it was found that from 2013 to 2016 Brazil accounted for around 50 per cent of the broiler products on the Chinese market.
And the CAAA alleged that Brazil was charging less than the market rate for these products.
The CAAA claimed that the dumping margin of the products involved is also comparatively large and at the same time as the amount of product entering China rose, the price fell, putting further pressure on the domestic production and market.
Official data shows that the imports were almost 85 per cent of frozen chicken imports — almost 600,000 tonnes valued at as much as $1.23 billion,
Brazil replaced the United States as China’s top chicken supplier after Beijing placed anti-dumping duties on US broiler chicken products in 2010.
MOFCOM decided to initiate an anti-dumping investigation into imports of broiler products from Brazil on 18 August and the inquiry is expected to last until February next year.
The significance of the inquiry is that it could act as a barrier to Chinese companies wishing to import poultry products from Brazil.
On the other hand, it could also open up the market to other global exporters.
The organisation that represents Brazil’s poultry producers and exporters ABPA is reported to have denied that it is selling product under the market rate.
ABPA denied its members sell products below market prices.
Reuters reports ABPA President Francisco Turra as saying: “We are very competitive and it is hard for the Chinese producer to understand.
“Such complaints are normal and we can defend ourselves.”
The investigation comes after the Brazilian meat sector was starting to recover from a scandal surrounding fraud and allegations that tainted meat was being passed as fit for human consumption and allowed onto the market and as Brazil’s largest meat processor agreed a fine of $3.2 billion for its part in the country’s corruption scandal.
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