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Report
No.220905 |
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- International - |
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Japan-Thailand EPA Talks Make Progress in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Sectors:Tariff on Chicken Meat Lowered, but Sugar and Starch to Be Renegotiated On March 30, it was revealed that Japan and Thailand made progress in major agricultural products during the latest vice-minister level talks aimed at concluding an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the two countries. After an agreement to exclude rice from the table was reached in October, 2004, sugar and starch have remained as major items to be resolved. The agreement at this time puts aside sugar and starch as exceptions from tariff elimination, which will be re-negotiated four to five years after the EPA takes effect. For chicken meat, it was agreed to lower, step by step, tariff of boneless chicken meat from the present 11.9% to 8.5%, the level applied to chicken legs with bone in. At that level of tariff, while Thailand will be in advantageous position relative to other competing countries such as the United States of America, damage to the Japanese domestic chicken raising industry is estimated to be light. Tariff for prepared chicken products will also be gradually lowered from 6% to 3%. For pineapples and bananas, a direction for solution was almost set by way of creating low tariff quotas for them. For the sensitive products having been agreed as exempt from tariff elimination, an offer to extend cooperation for achieving enhanced food safety on which Thailand showed a great interest as well as an offer of cooperation between agricultural cooperatives of the two countries made by the JA Group are seen to have contributed in facilitating the negotiations. The two countries will now aim at reaching an overall broad agreement at the ministers' level talks planned to be held in April. |
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