Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
Poultry body accuses Jamaican feed company of dumping on local market
The Guyana Poultry Association is complaining about a Jamaican company that has been dumping its feed on the local market.
The association is urging Governments in the region to up the pressure and even apply a 15 percent CARICOM External Tariff (CET) tax because the feed does not qualify for exemption.
A Jamaican company is being accused of dumping its poultry feed on the local market.
According to the association last evening poultry feeds from the Jamaican producer, Nutramix Feeds Ltd (Nutramix), a subsidiary of Caribbean Broilers Group, Custom authorities should move to apply the tax immediately.
The body explained that to qualify for origin status, the Jamaican company in question must add 40 percent local value in its manufacturing process.
“As none of its raw materials used are made in Jamaica, such feeds do not qualify. No corn, rice, soybean, phosphate, edible oils or other ingredients are produced there. Nutramix Feeds Ltd is essentially a mixing operation for ingredients produced and shipped from USA.”
The association insisted that the Jamaican authority issuing such certificates must re-examine this deception by Nutramix.
There is also a need for CARICOM Secretariat to police the granting of the certificates to safeguard against abuses of the rules of origin to ensure that intra-regional trade are fair and follow established rules.
The body noted that the Jamaican poultry feed industry is in excess of 550,000 metric tons per annum compared to Guyana’s 70,000. Two companies dominate the Jamaican market, Jamaican Broilers Ltd and Caribbean Broilers Ltd, owner of Nutramix.
“Feed producers in Guyana are tiny in comparison to its Jamaican counterparts but create strong local value added as a high percentage of raw materials used are produced locally. The local industry provides employment for more than 10,000 rural households and a market for by-products of rice and coconut and fish industries.”
The association said that over the past 18 months. Nutramix has been using its dominant position in its local market to subsidize its exports of feeds to other CARICOM markets, including Guyana.
Nutramix, the association charged, uses higher prices in its local market, a practice referred to dumping that is condemned under WTO rules, in the process causing much dislocations.
“In fact Nutramix is ‘picking the pockets of Jamaican consumers’ because it is exporting poultry feeds to Guyana at a discount as much as 20% on its best local prices. In other words, if Nutramix applied the same price in its local market as that of its export price to Guyana, then the price of chicken in Jamaica would be at least 15% lower.”
The Jamaican feed producer is allowed to abuse not only its local market position in breach of WTO rules on dumping, but also the abuse of the CARICOM Rules of Origin, the association said.
“No bilateral agreement could address this practice. It is time that Governments in the region and CARICOM’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) address this abuse without delay.”
The association said that in Guyana, the Customs department must act.
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