S. Africa: Anti-dumping duties against bone-in chicken imports

From January 2022 until June 2022, the country is imposing anti-dumping duties against all 9 countries – the US, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK – that have regularly exported bone-in chicken portions to this market. In the past 3 years, South Africa’s imports of poultry have declined by 63% with a further decline expected. South African producers, however, remain unable to meet demand through domestic production.

This anti-dumping duties come following an application made by the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) in January 2021, alleging imports of bone-in chicken meat imported from the 5 countries were being dumped on the Southern African Customs Union market. In December 2021, South Africa’s International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) announced that sufficient information was found indicating that dumping is taking place and “local industry is experiencing material injury or threat to material injury caused by the alleged dumped imports” as reported by a USDA report. As a result, an anti-dumping duty, which provides lower rates to specific companies from each country, have been imposed.

Table – South Africa’s bone-in chicken meat anti-dumping duties against Brazil, Denmark, Ireland, Poland and Spain

Source: ITAC

These duties are provisional and will expire on 14 June 2022. ITAC is undertaking further investigations in the interim and will announce the final anti-dumping duties for the 5 countries at that time.

Implications for poultry imports in South Africa

This is the second announcement of anti-dumping duties on poultry issued in recent months. In August 2021, anti-dumping duties were announced for bone-in chicken imports from the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. Prior to 2015, these 3 countries exported to South Africa duty-free due to their Economic Partnership Agreement with South Africa. With this latest announcement, South Africa is now applying anti-dumping duties to 9 countries which collectively represent all exporters of bone-in chicken portions to South Africa.

Figure – Sources of South Africa’s bone-in chicken imports (2020)

According to The Citizen, these imports have supposedly cost thousands of South African jobs by pushing smaller-scale local farmers out of the market.

“This is an innovative and very welcome solution to the problem of extremely lengthy investigations into applications for anti-dumping duties,” said FairPlay founder Francois Baird, as reported by The Citizen. “This is a victory for the local poultry industry, its workers, and small-scale black farmers who have suffered the effects of dumped and predatory imports.”