South Africa Allows US Chicken in Special Deal

The US and South Africa have reportedly made progress on the technical health and sanitary discussions related to the imports of poultry, pork, and beef meat from the United States, following a strategic dialogue held this week.

This development comes after growing frustrations from Washington over the alleged lack of implementation of the Paris agreement reached in June, which was meant to pave the way for the re-entry of US chicken imports to the South African market.

Since 2000, imports of certain US chicken products into South Africa had been subject to anti-dumping duties of above 100 percent, which US poultry meat exporters deemed unfair. Under the Paris agreement, South Africa committed to end these duties on US chicken and resume imports, initially at levels of 65,000 tonnes a year.

A separate set of actions was then envisaged in order to resolve the remaining sanitary issues related to poultry, pork, and beef after South Africa raised concerns over an avian influenza outbreak – an infectious viral disease of birds which can sometimes spread to poultry – in several US states. This led the former to delay the effective implementation of the agreement.