Questions for Australia over possible Egyptian orange dumping
Currently at a Sydney Retail Fruit Market a case of Egyptian oranges is selling for $10. Riverina Citrus growers cannot see how such a price is possible unless the fruit is being dumped in Australia at below cost.
“If you take approximately 30% off the retail $10 the shop makes, the percentage the agent makes, then the percentage the importer makes - add shipping freight and other import costs - and it is hard to see how you don’t have a product that is being dumped in Australia,” Frank Battistel, Riverina Citrus Chairman said.
“Australian growers – across all commodities – are already struggling with the high Aussie dollar, the last thing we need is other countries dumping their produce here,” Mr Battistel said.
“If trade in and out of Australia is to be free, it also must be fair,” he said.
“If the Australian dollar continues at its high level and we continue with this flawed free trade concept without a level playing field there will be no growers left in a few years.
“Growers will have no choice other than to sell up to foreign ownership or sell their water to government and get out of farming and Australia will have to rely on imports for all of our food,” Mr Battistel said.
“There are also serious questions about what is going into these fruit in the growing process in Egypt and who at our borders is monitoring this.
“As we have said before - the only way for consumers to be absolutely confident they are buying a safe, quality product is to make sure that the juice they are buying is 100% Australian grown and produced,” Mr Battistel said.