WTO Ruling Good News for American Meat Industry

Last week, the World Trade Organization ruled in favor of the United States in a dispute over Indonesia’s complex import requirements for a number of agricultural products, including U.S. beef.  The ruling is expected to open up significant new export opportunities for U.S. beef in the Indonesian market.  U.S. Meat Export Federation Senior Vice President for Trade Thad Lively said this was an important win for American Ag.

“This is one of those cases that was really well suited to take to the WTO, because Indonesia has in place a number of import rules and restrictions that are pretty clearly inconsistent with what the rules of the WTO say.”

Lively adds many of the steps recently taken by Indonesia were an effort to launch a meat industry of their own, rather than depending on imports.  Lively says the WTO’s ruling provides certainty for American producers as well as exporters, which mean good things into the future.

“It should open up opportunities in Indonesia like we’ve never seen.  Indonesia is of course the 4^th largest country in the world by population, but if you look at their per ca pita beef consumption its really quite small.”

He noted that Indonesia is a good destination for lower value, and muscle cuts meats and variety meat, but Lively is confident that will change as the middle class grows into the future.

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