evermore
928 posts









URSLA’S CONJOB Chair of the Australia–EU Red Meat Market Access Taskforce, Andrew McDonald, said the sector has been profoundly let down by the outcome, described by the industry group as the “worst ever free trade agreement for Australian red meat industry to date.” “The Australian red meat industry has been crystal clear that the FTA negotiations were the ideal mechanism to finally address the EU’s punitive and highly discriminatory import regime. “Yet the agreement delivers just 30,600 tonnes carcase weight (cwt) of beef access over the next 10 years, when a minimum of 50,000 tonnes (cwt) was required simply to be in line with what the EU has offered our competitors,” he said. “On sheep meat and goat meat, the result is equally disappointing: 25,000 tonnes (cwt) over seven years, despite Australian industry requesting a minimum of 67,000 tonnes cwt. This stands in stark contrast to New Zealand’s access of 163,769 tonnes, which is an outrageous discrepancy,” Mr McDonald said. “To land a deal so far below what other suppliers have secured is genuinely bewildering. “The agreement is a long way from anything resembling ‘free and fair trade’, particularly given Australia already provides the EU with quota‑and tariff‑free access for meat products like pork, while the A‑EU FTA locks in perpetual volume constraints on Australian red meat entering the EU.” The taskforce said the Federal Government has badly let the sector down, signing an extremely disappointing free trade deal with the European Union that falls far short of what Australia needed and expected. sheepcentral.com/eu-sheep-meat-…








🚨🇮🇷 The CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, just pulled out of an international energy conference, because of the Iran conflict. The man who should be explaining the global energy crisis to the world is too busy surviving it. Source: JPost




























