Brazil´s agriculture ministry rejects restrictions on Mercosur dairy imports

The Ministry of Agriculture has announced that it will not support the request of some entities in the dairy sector to restrict dairy product imports, mainly from Mercosur. In the segment, purchases are seen as being an imbalance factor in the domestic market, negatively affecting the profitability of Brazilian ranchers.

On the other hand, the agency is seeking to exempt the purchase of equipment for agro-industrialization and to facilitate the entry of US corn to supply the chain. “We want to protect our producers, but we don’t want to prevent any type of import. This hurts the liberal economy and the Mercosur treaty. This hypothesis is ruled out; we’ll never prevent imports”, says the Secretary of Agricultural Policy, César Halum. According to him, the ministry has been talking to authorities in Argentina and Uruguay, the main exporters of these products to Brazil, and analyzing whether there is any dumping occurring.

As a way of encouraging producers, the Ministry of Agriculture will send a request to the Foreign Trade Chamber (CAMEX) to remove the import tariff for milk-industrialization equipment. The ministry is also seeking to unlock the entry of some transgenic corn cultivars used in the United States through the National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) so that the chain can buy American cereal.

The secretary says he believes in the natural adjustment of the market to reduce the entry of foreign dairy products into the country. “As the world price has risen, and today it is par, I understand that Brazilian industries will stop importing naturally to be able to buy milk from here. This will balance the market ”, he says.

Fetag-RS is one of the entities that defend the restriction on imports. “We ask for protection for the national market, even more after the anti-dumping rate fell and it was easy to import milk. We are asking to establish limits on imports ”, said Eugênio Zanetti, vice president of the entity. He recognizes the difficulty in convincing the government to take action in this direction. “The idea is that producers are more competitive, but how are we going to be competitive if we don’t have incentives?”.

The Brazilian Association of Milk Producers (ABRALEITE) defends the taxation of imported dairy products, as is the case with Brazilian sugar when it is sold to Mercosur countries.

In January this year, imports of dairy products approached 18,000 tons, 26% lower than that of December 2020, when purchases reached 22,600 tons. In comparison with the first month of last year, however, the volume increased by 64%. In January 2020, Brazil imported about 11,000 tons. In the total for the year, imports reached 174,000 tons, according to data from Agrostat, from the Ministry of Agriculture.

The chart below shows Brazilian dairy imports since 2017:

Brazilian Dairy Imports (Chap. 04) | Jan 2017 to Dec 2020 | TEU

Graph source: DataLiner (To request a DataLiner demo click here)

Article source: Valor Econômico

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