Ricardo Marquez, president of the Regional Agricultural Union of Fruit Growers of the State of Chihuahua (UNIFRUT), filed a complaint before the Ministry of Economy, so that they investigate the US dumping of apples to Mexico which has caused serious losses to domestic producers.
Dumping is a business practice of selling a product below its normal price, or even below production costs, to eliminate the competition and eventually take over the market. Dumping is prohibited by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In that sense, Ricardo Marquez said consumers had the last word. They'll have to decide if they want to eat American apples or Mexicans apples, which taste better. "We have been pointing out unfair trade practices and the Ministry of Economy has confirmed there are dumping practices," he said.
He said the government had taken a controversial resolution because they had "eliminated the quotas that had given the sector stability until last June, and this puts us in danger because our 2016 production, which is quite good, is coming out in about a month."
When asked if the Ministry of Economy had been remiss in this matter and had not protected the producers of Chihuahua, the president of Unifrut said the Ministry was available and open but that he thought it hadn't taken all the necessary steps to clarify this type of events.
He said that the Mexican Government needed to do more to better protect its people. "In such situations, the authority knows there is something going on and the person currently defending the American industry used to be the head of the International Trade Practices Unit (UPCI)."
He said they had a model they created to turn this issue around, "that's what's really serious and we do feel that they shouldn't have removed the quotas. That they should have done more, or that they should bring things to the light in the future."
Ricardo Marquez said he hoped things didn't turn out as they did in 2013, when there was an oversupply of apples previous to the Mexican harvest. "In that sense we have not had a latent support from the Mexican government, which should have launched a campaign to promote Mexican apples," he added.
Finally, the president of the Regional Agricultural Union of Fruit Growers of the State of Chihuahua said they would continue to defend this sector and that they wouldn't drop their guard.
Source: radioformula.com