Friday, March 29, 2024

NZ wins trade ruling

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The World Trade Organisation has upheld its earlier ruling in New Zealand’s favour in a billion-dollar beef dispute with Indonesia.
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In December last year the WTO ruled Indonesian import regulations estimated to have cost the NZ beef industry a billion dollars in lost sales since 2011 were in contravention of international trade law.

The Indonesians appealed against that decision by the WTO dispute panel to the Geneva-based organisation’s appellate body on the basis the regulations had been amended to reflect the earlier ruling.

On Friday the appellate body released its ruling which Trade Minister David Parker said upheld key findings in the earlier decision.

“The decision from the WTO’s highest dispute settlement body is an important result for our agricultural exporters and should pave the way to grow NZ exports to the Indonesian market.”

Meat Industry Association chief executive Tim Ritchie said exporters would welcome the appellate body’s finding but questions remained.

Indonesia had a history, when challenged, of replacing one set of illegal import restrictions with another.

“Are, for example, the existing set of rules against which the system is working, are they WTO compliant or not … they are certainly a lot better than they were but what certainty do we have that they will not revert back?”

Ritchie said even if all restrictions were removed increased competition from Indian buffalo meat meant it was unlikely exports of secondary NZ beef cuts, which had historically dominated the trade with Indonesia, would bounce back to their previous levels any time soon.

More likely, in the shorter, term was a rebound in offal, which had already staged a recovery in recent months as import restrictions were gradually loosened.

A spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said while there had been a number of recent changes to Indonesian import regulations for beef there were still some that remained that were illegal in the view of the court.

“Indonesia is required to bring its import regime into conformity with its obligations by removing WTO-inconsistent non-tariff barriers challenged by NZ.”

Parker said he would be working with his Indonesian counterpart in the next few months to resolve remaining blockages to beef exports as well as for some horticultural products.

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