Bid to raise beef quota

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 34

Bid to raise beef quota

NZPA staff correspondent Washington Australian beef exporters are seeking a court ruling in a bid to raise the levels at which Australia, New Zealand, and Canada can export beef to the United States in years in which voluntary restraints are agreed. Trade sources in Washington say the Australians are “doing their own thing” and have not asked New Zealand or Canada to join them in the suit. The system here allows for quotas to be imposed if imports of foreign beef rise to a level where they threaten the domestic industry, but the United States Department of Agriculture — and the exporting countries — generally prefer to agree on voluntary restraints instead. The suit, before the United States Court of International Trade in New York, has been filed by the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation, Thomas Borthwick and Sons, and W.

Angliss and Company. The argument centres on which level applies when the voluntary restraints are negotiated. The United States Meat Import Act of 1979 sets a floor level for beef imports of 1.25 billion pounds. That is interpreted by the exporting countries as the absolute minimum America should accept, with that Act passed after international negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (G.A.T.T.). Quite apart from the floor level, the U.S.D.A. sets a base level for imports each year after calculating American supplies, and also a trigger level 10 per cent higher than the base level. The department then makes quarterly estimates of how much foreign beef it believes will enter the United States by the year’s end. If the estimate nears the trigger level, negotiations start on a choice of voluntary restraints up to just

under the trigger level or the imposition of quotas at the lower base level. No problem exists if the base level is above the 1.25 billion pounds floor level in the act, but the Australians are arguing that the floor level still applies as the minimum if the base and trigger levels are set below the floor level. Last year, after individual negotiations with the main suppliers — Australia, New Zealand, and Canada — (and estimating shipments from about 10 small Central American and Caribbean suppliers), total imports were projected at 1.230 billion pounds, fractionally below the trigger level of 1.231 billion pounds (a technicality to avoid, having to impose quotas) and the voluntary restraints were agreed accordingly after each of the three countries fought for the highest possible share of the total. That 1.230 billion pounds figure, though, was 20 million pounds under the floor level, representing a loss to the exporting countries of over SUS 20 million. The Australians are arguing that this is legally wrong and morally reprehensible, and that the law requires voluntary restraints to be negotiated at least to the 1.25 billion pounds floor level. Trade sources in Wash-

ington say that New Zealand, with a SUSSOO million beef trade with the United States, has been doing well under the present system, but that a reform may be in the country’s long term interests. The Australian share of American beef imports has historically been around the 52 per cent mark, and New Zealand’s around 23 per cent, but in recent years New Zealand has crept up to close to 29 per cent. Much of the Australian beef exported to the United States comes from Queensland, and is not available till late in the year. That makes it difficult for the Australians to estimate early in the year how much they will send over, leading to figures regarded in the United States with great suspicion, while New Zealand and Canada are meantime exporting as much as they are able and pushing American projections toward the trigger level. The trigger level for this year has also been set under the floor level, at 1.228 billion pounds — even lower than last year’s trigger. The U.S.D.A. March prediction was that exporting countries will send over 1.190 billion pounds this year, but the estimates tend to increase each quarter. The court hearing is set for May 10.