A decision in October last year to suspend citrus exports to the EU over citrus black spot (CBS) concerns has bolstered South Africa’s relationship with the European Union (EU), says Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) special envoy EU – market access, Deon Joubert.
He told FTW that the EU had responded positively to the decision, which was undertaken to ensure the country’s citrus industry maintained market access to what is, and will continue to be, one of the most important markets for the sector.
“Last year a decision was taken at a special meeting of the CGA’s CBS Disaster Management Committee to voluntarily shut down exports to the EU based on an assessment of the risk of sanctions from the market,” said Joubert. “We banned ourselves in order to manage market access rather than lose it as the EU had threatened to impose stricter import legislation should it receive volumes of citrus with CBS.”
This was clearly a smart move. Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries stakeholder relations and communication acting chief director, Steve Galane, told FTW that no new, stricter measures had been imposed by the EU on citrus imports from South Africa after the CBS interceptions in 2017.
He said that while there had been a negative impact on revenues due to the intervention, the losses were much lower than the risk of completely losing market access to the EU.
Joubert said that over R1 billion in revenue had been lost during the suspension period, around 10 000 pallets, equivalent to around 1% of total export revenues – an amount he said that was just too small to risk the relationship with the EU.
He said that voluntarily suspending exports to the EU was not something new but had been an annual practice over the past four years.
Joubert also pointed out that the citrus industry was currently trying to achieve a more balanced portfolio, partly to mitigate the losses of these suspension measures, by constantly diversifying its export markets.
INSERT AND CAPTION
We banned ourselves in order to manage market access. – Deon Joubert
