SA seeks political solution to citrus dispute

SA is hoping to nudge the EU towards a political solution in its long-running dispute over restrictions on local citrus fruit entering the EU, its largest export market. A Business Day report says this is in addition to the dispute SA has launched at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which seeks to review the EU regulations governing the importation of citrus fruits which affect imports from SA. SA claims EU phytosanitary requirements relating to false codling moth impose restrictions on the importation of SA citrus fruit. SA regards the regulations as unscientific. In July, SA requested the establishment of two panels at a meeting of the dispute settlement body of the WTO to examine what – in SA’s view – are unscientific and discriminatory measures placed on citrus imported from SA by the EU, after more than 20 years of engagements with the EU to find an amicable solution. Speaking on the sidelines of the WTO public forum in Geneva, Zuko Godlimpi, Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry & Competition, said he would meet his European counterparts to discuss the matter further. ‘We need to find a way outside and inside the WTO’s processes ... the only thing that got us here is because the previous bilateral process failed,’ he said. ‘From a science point of view, we’ve done all that we could do to meet up with the standards that we have.’ If SA was successful at resolving the dispute at the WTO, this was likely to have a domino effect on exports from the SA Development Community and the wider continent, Godlimpi said.

Full Business Day report