POULTRY INDUSTRY
Avian flu a last straw amid cheap imports
Outbreaks in key poultry provinces combine with plant closures and job layoffs to hammer the teetering sector
The outbreak of avian flu in SA could not have come at a worse time for the poultry industry, already struggling to survive in the face of cheap European imports. So far there have been outbreaks of the highly pathogenic virus in five provinces — Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Western Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal — which have necessitated the culling of hundreds of thousands of birds. This has come on top of the plant closures and job layoffs due to the import of cheap European bone-in chicken portions that has not been mitigated by the imposition in December of a 13.9% tariff increase. The International Trade Administration Commission has since been considering whether a further tariff hike is justified. If SA cannot produce sufficient quantities of chicken, it will have to rely more on imports. Already, the country is the fifth-largest importer of chicken worldwide after Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico and China and was the world’s fourth-largest consumer of chicken per capita in 2016. It is...
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