Expert advice on dumping of poultry in SA market

Genesis has become an important source of independent analysis and advice to the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) and, through these engagements, also to decision-makers in South Africa’s International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC), the Department of Trade and Industry (the DTI) and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF).

Over the past three years, we have helped ITAC to understand the potential impacts on domestic prices and consumers, and also on domestic poultry producers arising from SAPA’s tariff and anti-dumping applications against imported poultry products.

Our work has also shaped and developed all stakeholders’ understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of the trade remedies available in South Africa’s Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement (TDCA) with the European Union (EU). This has extended to our involvement in SAPA's application ITAC, submitted this year, to invoke these trade remedies in an effort to mitigate the impacts of imports from EU producers under the TDCA.

In 2015, we also helped the DTI to understand and to be able to compare the relative costs of the threats and demands made by the US government in relation to South Africa's continued membership of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was a significant source of concern to SAPA at the time.

In these various work streams, Genesis has modelled the transmission mechanism between higher tariffs, domestic prices and consumer welfare, as well as the average return on capital employed by domestic producers to be able to continue investing in their businesses.

These analyses have generated a clearer understanding of the trade-offs between different types and levels of import protection. They have also assisted ITAC and the dti in their decision-making over what are critical economic policy issues from the perspective of domestic manufacturing capacity and employment.