In my piece last week, titled ‘Numbing dumping’, you were offered recipes for ‘A Good, Easy Garlic Chicken’ and French fries. The relevance of the recipes was that antidumping duties have been imposed on three agricultural products: frozen chicken meat, garlic (both fresh and dried) and French fries.
There is more news, both good and bad. The latter first; I cannot offer you another recipe, but this ingredient will open a range of culinary and beverage delights for you. It can be used in various forms of baking, and for making alcoholic beverages. It has been used since ancient times, with the Egyptians having used it in bread making, and it has also been used for making fermented drinks, such as beer and wine.
By now you would have deducted that yeast (active yeast, for extra marks) is the fourth agricultural product on which an antidumping duty has been imposed. But what has been imposed is only a provisional duty.
Against which economic powerhouse is South Africa and its fellow Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) member countries – Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho and Namibia – imposing the duty?
If you want to cheat, you could have a quick peak at the instalment of this column published on September 15, 2023, which was titled ‘In knead of help’. If you were expecting me to give you the answer, I am afraid you would ‘knead’ to activate your grey matter.
Let me give you two hints. Had you guessed Lesotho, that would have been a fail. As for the second hint, on March 22, www.waterdiplomat.org reported that, on March 14, South Africa’s Water and Sanitation Minister, Senzo Mchunu, and Zimbabwe’s Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development Minister, Anxious Masuka, signed an agreement for the transfer of treated water from Zimbabwe to South Africa.
If you enjoy your history, Sacu was established in 1889, making it the oldest operational customs union in the world. On June 3, 1903, the government of the then Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) signed up as a member, only to withdraw on May 31, 1910, the day on which the Union of South Africa was established. Southern Rhodesia was subsequently excluded from the Sacu Agreement of June 29, 2010.
On May 10 this year, which is about two weeks ago, the South African Revenue Service imposed the antidumping duty on active yeast up to and including November 9 – for six months, if you have been counting.
It took 266 days from the date of publication in the Government Gazette on August 18, 2023, for the duty to be imposed. So, just under nine months, which is very quick for the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa, which undertook the investigation that led to the imposition of the duty.
Do you want to guess the margin of dumping, expressed as the rate of the duty, and how many duties were imposed? If the guessing is becoming far too tedious, the answer is 132.2%, and two duties were imposed on “active yeast, produced or exported by Lesaffre Zimbabwe” and “active yeast (excluding that produced or exported by Lesaffre Zimbabwe”.
Since Zimbabwe is a member of the Southern African Development Community, a ‘general’ rate of customs duty of 0% applies, which means that imported active yeast from Zimbabwe will now be subject to an antidumping duty. To understand Itac’s reasoning, you will need to peruse its Report Number 729, which was not available at the time of writing. If you are affected, you have until June 18 to comment.
Zimbabwe joins Egypt, the only other country on the African continent to have Sacu antidumping duties imposed on its exports. Egypt too has two duties. I know that you do not want to guess which product; but another hint – it might well provide you with even more recipe options. The target product is uncooked pasta, stuffed or otherwise prepared.
Ultimately, the duties are imposed on a French multinational, resulting from an action brought by a Canadian multinational that is domiciled on Sacu soil. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.
If you want to know what else is cooking, please become an avid reader of this column. Bon appétit.