High-level delegation challenges Thai ban on SA fruit

Fresh produce exporters in SA are fighting to have a ban by Thailand on the fruit industry’s products lifted, according to Anton Rabe, executive director of Hortgro Services. It all revolves round a technical error in SA’s documentation submitted to the Thailand authorities after that country joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2008, he told FTW, and had to change its import mechanisms and get in line with international protocol. Effectively, it requested all its trading partners to indicate that they had fulfilled all the necessary export conditions for each of their export products – which, in the case of fresh produce from SA, were that we fulfilled the necessary phytosanitary conditions. But there was a technical error in SA’s submission and, instead of giving us a window to correct this mistake, said Rabe, Thailand slapped a unilateral ban on SA fresh fruits. A major problem caused by SA’s exit from this market, according to Elaine Alexander, executive director of the SA Table Grape Industry, is that it sends the wrong signal to other members of the Asian trading group, Asean. “We need to have our association with Thailand renewed,” she said, “otherwise we’ll be sending the wrong message to other potential trading partners in the region such as Cambodia, Vietnam and the like.” And government is busy trying to rectify this problem. A meeting has just been held in Pretoria involving the departments of international relations and co-operation (Dirco), trade and industry, agriculture, forestry and fisheries; the Bureau for Food and Agriculture Policy and government lawyers dealing with trade matters; and various representatives of trade bodies including the SA pome, stone fruit and table grape industries. Also present was the SA ambassador to Thailand, Douglas Gibson. “The meeting brought together government and the business sector with the objective of discussing and exploring all possible avenues to resolve the ban imposed by Thailand in 2008,” FTW was told. And, according to a recent study by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy in the Western Cape, this ban on the exportation of SA fresh produce to Thailand has had a devastating effect, with export losses estimated at R150-million per year. This has led to job losses in the industry and concomitant socio-economic problems in the communities serving the fruit industry. Although it’s a relatively small market, said Rabe, “it was growing nicely, at about 5% a year, I reckon. “And some of our SA fruit products are more suited in flavour to the Asian palate than those of the traditional markets in Europe and the UK.” Ambassador Gibson indicated that the SA Embassy in Bangkok had had continuous discussions with a wide range of decision-makers in Thailand in an attempt to achieve a breakthrough. He felt that this latest meeting in Pretoria would give fresh impetus to the resolution of the issue.