A proposal to resolve ongoing poultry meat trade disputes between the US and South Africa has prompted South African Poultry Association leader, Kevin Lovell, to call on a “reasonable compromise” with US trade officials.

According to Business Report, the latest offer from the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council will soon receive a response on its latest offer.

Mr Lovell said the US “seems to care little” for South African “market realities”.

The dispute threatens South Africa’s participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act trade scheme.

He dismissed claims that SAPA was holding up talks.

“As the duties are lawfully in place the best solution for the dispute is that the two industries find some reasonable compromise,” said Mr Lovell. “We have been twice to the USA, they have yet to come here, and it is time for some sunshine discussions.”

“We have explained to our counterparts that the sooner they can be reasonable the sooner we can agree to a concession for once we have agreed and reduced our agreement to writing we will have to make an application to the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) to put our agreement into effect.”

He denied US imports are totally shut off, underlining the scope of anti-dumping duties.

He said: “The anti-dumping duties apply to only one tariff line, so the rest of the poultry import market (about 250 000 tons per annum) is freely available to them and the part for which the anti-dumping duties apply (about 150 000 tons) is also available as the principle of an anti-dumping duty is that it is corrective, not punitive, ie it levels the playing field so that the two parties can compete equally and fairly.”