Minagricultura supports the dairy, beef and sugar sectors excluded from the FTA with Australia and New Zealand

In a letter addressed to the Minister of Commerce, Juan Guillermo Zuluaga asked to protect the agricultural and agro-industrial production of the country.

The impact on the dairy and beef sector could have a trade agreement with New Zealand and Australia does not only concern domestic producers and the industrialists, insistently, but also with the Ministry of Agriculture.

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In a letter dated July 3 addressed to the Minister of Commerce, of Industry and Tourism (Mincit), María Lorena Gutiérrez, Rural Portfolio Manager, Juan Guillermo Zuluaga, reiterates the need to exclude these sectors, as well as the sugar industry, from negotiations in progress between the Pacific Alliance and the nominees to the states badociated with the bloc: Canada, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

The Minister points out the competitive disadvantages that Colom would have had with respect to the latter two countries. New Zealand, the most productive nation in the world, has more than tripled the volumes of fluid milk registered in our country, while Australia has 1.5 times more than Colombia. With regard to milk powder, New Zealand production is more than 43 times higher than that of Colombia and that of Australia 7.8 times higher.

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With the increase of milk stocks, plus the import quotas granted for the dairy sector, the Ministry of Agriculture considers that there are guarantees of "milk". supply for Colombia, even though demand is increasing.

national production and industry in case of overproduction of the aforementioned countries of Oceania, while there is a tendency to replace dairy products or that consumption among major buyers in the world remains stable and 'not do not grow. A crisis stemming from the above or from a national overproduction would lower the prices paid to the producer and would generate, according to the terms of the ministry, a social problem in the rural areas.

In Australia, beef production is three times higher than that of Colombia, and although New Zealand produces less, it exports 40 times more than the volume that our country sells abroad and, moreover, it is eligible for a larger number of contracts

. The third exporter of this product in the world. The applicant country, by volume, produces more than twice as much sugar as Colombia. The minister says that he does not consider it appropriate to open import quotas or reduce tariffs. The opposite, says the letter, would expose this agro-industrial activity.

Summing up the three sectors, says Zuluaga, there are 1.5 million jobs.

Finally, the Minister, in writing, the technical team of the portfolio available to Mincit to conduct an impact badysis to "clarify the scope of the negotiation."

The fifth round of negotiations between the bloc composed of Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile, with the candidates to the Associated States, it takes place in the Aztec country and will end next Friday. For the moment, there is no number of cycles in progress.

The Mincit, for his part, said that as in any free trade agreement negotiations, the concerns and needs of the private sector are taken into account. Government to take them to the table. He says that conversations with the private sector have been fluid and that the ministry "is very conscious" of the necessities that wield it. It has been categorical that the negotiation is still ongoing, in which this process is not yet complete.