The Ministry of Trade and Industry has tightened control measures around the importation of poultry products already produced in Namibia, with the introduction of import permits, reports Informanté.

Minister of Trade, Calle Schlettwein authorised the Meat Board of Namibia in terms of the Import and Export Control Act to issue permits upon application for the importation of poultry products into Namibia.

The new control measures were gazetted on 5 April and came into force on 6 May. From that date, importers of poultry products derived from slaughtered chickens will be issued with permits to import poultry products not produced locally, with the ministry settling for a monthly quota of 600 tonnes, which will be apportioned amongst importers.

No such restrictions were in place in the past, which allowed importers to import unlimited amounts of poultry products already produced in the country.

Manager of operations at the Meat Board, Willie Schutz, said only basic products not produced locally will be permitted to enter the country. These include frozen products such as wings, baby chicken and breast fillets, while Individual Quick Frozen (IQF) products such as fresh whole birds will be restricted from entering Namibia.

According to Mr Schutz, the apportioning of the 600 tonnes will be weighed on the basis of each individual importer’s import history from the previous financial year, against what they currently intend to import.

The apportioning will be done monthly by a steering committee which will take into account the situation at that given time. “In the first three months (May to July), the apportionment of the 600 tonnes, if needed, will be done on previous year’s import data.

"After the three months we will apportion based on how much importers buy locally. It is important that companies wishing to import, including in transit, should register with the Meat Board so as to receive relevant information on time,” Mr Schutz concluded.

By the time of going to print, Informanté reports that no data indicating the monthly Namibian consumer demand for poultry products were available, with Namibia’s biggest poultry producer, Namibia Poultry Industries (NPI) producing about 2,000 tonnes of poultry products per month for local consumption.