Jam industry: Anti-Dumping duties on frozen strawberries from China unacceptable - 19.10.2006

The fruit preserve manufactures inside OEITFL, the European Processed Fruit & Vegetable Industry, are shocked at the Commission decision to impose – as of today - anti-dumping duties on EU imports of frozen strawberries from China, which they consider inappropriate and unjustified.

The new 34.2% (!) anti-dumping duty will add a totally disproportionate cost to all enterprises across the EU that use frozen strawberries for their products. Fruit accounts for ca. 40% of the raw material costs of jam production. The duty on Chinese imports – additional to the 14,4% existing import duty - will raise the market price for all frozen strawberries, thus significantly increasing the cost of the final product and reducing the industry’s competitiveness. The introduction of these duties falls into a particularly difficult fruit supply year for the industry, with many other berry fruit in short supply and at exceptionally high prices.

Anti-dumping measures were requested by less than 30% of community producers – all of them Polish – while 70% of EU producers (in Poland and Spain) did not consider it worth joining the complaint.1 The anti-dumping calculations have been based on 2005 figures only and provide an inaccurate reflection of a market that regulates itself, and where price fluctuations are normal as for any agricultural product. Already this year, the average prices paid by our industry don’t point at a dumping pattern at all: prices from all destinations – including China - have roughly doubled compared to last year. At the same time imports from China in the first 6 months of this year have gone down.

AD duties on top of today’s price levels essentially “exclude” China as a supply source. The implications of these AD measures will leave the European jam industry to cope with the instability in supply from Poland – both price and availability wise2.

EU users of frozen strawberries stress that
• Polish products already have a significant competitive advantage over other producing countries, and in particular over China. see point 1 background memo
• Chinese imports are NOT the key factor that disrupted Polish profitability, but they rescued EU supply in 2002 and 2003 see point 2 background memo.
• Poland has never been able to supply more than 70% of the industries’ total requirements. EU processors therefore need to source other European and non-European frozen strawberries