US Agoa poultry exporters struggle with SA’s empowerment provisos
US producers undershot their Agoa quota in 2016-17, as they struggled to build relationships with SA importers, many of whom lack experience and finance
Sao Paulo — US poultry producers nearly reached their full 65,000 ton quota of exports to SA under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) in the year to end-March. However the start to the current year had been slow, the president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (Usapeec), James Sumner, said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the biggest bi-annual conference in Brazil for the poultry and pork industries. More than 50 foreign journalists have been invited to attend the conference as Brazil tries to rebuild its reputation as a meat exporter after the scandal involving allegedly contaminated meat broke out in March. US poultry producers received a quota of 65,000 tons of bone-in chicken portions for export to SA when Agoa was extended in the beginning of 2016. It took some time for relationships with South African importers to be built up, so more than 50% of the quota only came in in the last three months of the 2016-17 fiscal year. Sumner said the start to the 2017-18 yea...
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