Analysis of the impact on ACP countries of opening up the EU import market for canned tuna - Executive summary

IDDRA Ltd Analysis of the impact on ACP countries of opening up the EU import market for canned tuna 1 Abstract In mid-2003 ACP canned tuna producers lost a degree of their comparative advantage over the larger Asian producers when the EU, abiding by a WTO ruling, assigned Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia a 25,000 tonnes import quota of reduced tariff canned tuna. Protected by zero-rated tariff barriers for their canned tuna, principle ACP producers such as Senegal, Ghana, Mauritius and Seychelles had succeeded in developing successful and thriving canned tuna industries targeting the rapidly expanding markets in Europe. Although the EU maintained that economic loss to ACP states would be negligible, various institutions in Europe were not convinced. In a bid to establish how ACP countries would be affected by this change in EU trade policy, a study was conducted in Ghana, Senegal, Mauritius and Seychelles in 2003-2004. All the countries in the study are constrained by high labour costs, high transportation costs and EU regulations concerning product origin, and two of the study countries suffer from the usual limitations encountered by small-island states. The study found that all the canneries were reporting reduced turnover or reduced profit and that, at a sectoral level and particularly in terms of socioeconomic development, all the study countries would be negatively affected to some degree or another (although macro-level economic impacts were likely to be small). IDDRA Ltd Analysis of the impact on ACP countries of opening up the EU import market for canned tuna 2 Introduction: background to the WTO decision