Accusations of Chicken Dumping Back at the WTO

China and the US have become embroiled in an anti-dumping case over chicken at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, announced earlier this week that his office was initiating dispute settlement at the WTO, challenging the imposition by the People's Republic of China of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of US chicken.

The US industry says this is a significant trade problem. The action being brought is a trade remedy case that challenges the method by which China determined that the product was allegedly sold at below normal value.

The US industry alleges that the Chinese methodology was flawed and that the anti-dumping proceeding did not comply with international rules. Furthermore, it adds that the Chinese authorities also state that US poultry exports benefit from farm subsidies, such as support prices for corn and soybeans. The reality is that US poultry receives no government subsidies and does not benefit from any of the government crop programmes.

For their part, the Chinese authorities describe the US action as 'illogical', adding that the US does not check its policies on agricultural subsidies, which lead to the dumping of poultry products in the Chinese market. Instead, the US took action against China, where a number of poultry industries have fallen victim to the dumping.

Last September, China decided to levy anti-dumping duties of between 50.3 per cent to 105.4 per cent on imports of US chicken products for five years. The decision was based upon findings by its Ministry of Commerce, which show that the US chicken industry has dumped broiler products into the Chinese market and caused 'substantial damage' to China's domestic industry.

In the EU, animal welfare campaigners, Eurogroup for Animals, says it is extremely disappointed that in the draft proposals on the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) leaked recently, the Commission does not address the concerns of millions of EU citizens, who have called for improved welfare for farm animals and for more sustainable agriculture. Animal welfare is not stated as an objective of the reformed policy and no basic payment will be given to farmers to improve it.

And finally, H5N1 highly pathogenic bird flu has hit a second Indian state, namely West Bengal, leading to a cull of more than 50,000 poultry.