Fine print may stymie pork bid

Agreements such as CER might limit attempts to restrict pork imports.


Pig farmers will find out in days whether they have passed the first hurdle in their bid for trade restrictions on imported pork.

Ministry of Commerce trade remedy investigators will this week present an assessment to the Pork Industry Board of its application for temporary safeguards against imports of Canadian and Australian pig meat.

The application has already caused embarrassment to the red-meat industry, which is fighting the same restrictions on its lamb exports to the United States.

Last week officials said they had sought a legal opinion on the impact of bilateral trade agreements between New Zealand and the two Commonwealth countries on the measures being sought.

The closer economic relations (CER) deal with Australia, especially, may contain provisions that override the World Trade Agreement on Safeguards, on which the New Zealand Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act is based.

A spokesman for the Australian Trade Commission said the CER agreement carried an obligation for consultation. He would not comment further.

The Canadian Trade Commissioner, John Hill, said a 1981 agreement between his country and New Zealand required consultation if import limits were being considered.

He questioned the board's claim that Canadian pig farmers were subsidised.

The only Government assistance they might get was income stabilisation after floods and drought. "Our point would be that subsidies mean very specific things in international trade law, and you argue those cases within the rules of the WTO [World Trade Organisation] or the Gatt [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]."

The board, which claimed in its application that the imported pig meat received considerable subsidies, said it was not in a position to determine whether they were sanctioned by the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.

Meanwhile, a pork industry commentator has questioned the wisdom of the board's application.

Dr Julian Waters, the chief nutritionist of feed-supplement company Nutritech International, said pig farmers needed to devise long-term strategies to secure their future.

"My guess is this particular application is more a result of political pressure from pork producers, and quite a bit of that pressure will be for short-term protectionism."

Protectionism was doomed to failure.

"If you are not going to change you'll only protect an economically unviable situation, and all you do is delay execution time."

He said producers generally considered the frozen pork market to be vulnerable to imports, but the fresh market to be protected by the distance from major exporters.

"Improvements in processing and packaging technology render this argument invalid, and the Australians have already exported chilled meat to New Zealand and Southeast Asia."

Dr Waters said pork producers cared little about how their productive efficiency rated against their competitors.

Many preferred to blame high feed costs and cheap imports on their demise while doing little to rectify the problem.

He urged the industry to change its culture. "If they pursue the temporary safeguard without having any long-term strategy they are just wasting their time."