BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is likely this week to impose tariffs on rice coming from Cambodia and Myanmar for the next three years to curb a surge in imports, according to a source familiar with the file.
FILE PHOTO: A farmer works in a rice paddy field outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, December 5, 2016. REUTERS/SamrNOang Pring/File Photo
The European Commission, which oversees trade policy in the bloc, proposed the measures last year and put these to the 28 member countries in December, but failed to get a clear majority of them in favor.
In the absence of an opinion by the relevant committee, the Commission itself was bound to take the final decision.
It has launched an internal procedure to determine if there is any opposition, with a Wednesday deadline, a source familiar with the process said. If, as expected, there is no opposition, then it would likely announce the start of measures on Friday, the source said.
The Commission’s proposal is to set a duty of 175 euros ($200.73) per tonne of rice in the first year, dropping to 150 euros in the second and 125 euros in year three, according to a Commission source.
It follows a “safeguard” investigation launched in March after a request from the Italian government.
Cambodia and Myanmar benefit from the EU’s “Everything But Arms” scheme which allows the world’s least developed countries to export most goods to the European Union free of duties.
Both countries already face losing this special access to the world’s largest trading bloc over their human rights records, although this potential sanction is separate from the rice safeguard measures.
The Commission found that a significant surge in imports had caused economic damage to the rice sector in Europe. Rice grows in eight southern European countries from Portugal to Bulgaria.
EU farming group Copa-Cogeca has said the two countries’ exports to the European Union of longer-grained Indica rice have increased from 9,000 tonnes in 2012 to 360,000 tonnes in 2017, resulting in a collapse of rice prices.
Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Ed Osmond
3 comments:
Ah Kbot Cheat Hun Sen regime will face a financial catastrophe after the end of EBA. And social unrest will push ah Norouk Hun Sen to where he belongs - HELL.
Only Sam Rainsy can ask EU to lift any embargo, sanction against Cambodia. And Hun Sen is really scared.
Cambodia is still very poor so the Chinese are buying land at dirt-cheap price. They bring in materials, hire cheap labor locally then build nice places at jacked up price to make huge profit.
Even most local Cambodians cannot afford to buy any of the new development, on the paper, the Chinese developers are doing well. So, either more Chinese would move there to buy the surplus apartments, buildings or much later, the few rich CPP Cambodians will.
The poor Cambodians will never benefit in this mode of economy. What they really need are just some sustaining jobs like manufacturing, production.
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