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WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 11, 2006 – Calling it
a tremendous victory for U.S. pork producers, the
National Pork Producers Council today praised
congressional approval of Permanent Normal Trade
Relations (PNTR) status for Vietnam. The House and
Senate passed the trade deal late Friday and early
Saturday, respectively, as part of legislation
extending various expiring tax credits. It was the
109th Congress’s last order of business before
adjourning.
With PNTR, U.S. exporters can take advantage of
Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization.
(Vietnam will become a WTO member Jan. 11, 2007.)
Tariff rates for about 75 percent of U.S.
agricultural exports to Vietnam, including pork,
will decline to WTO-bound duty rates of 15 percent
or less. The tariffs on pork variety meats, which
are in high demand in Vietnam, will decline from a
rate of 20 percent to 8 percent over four years.
Tariffs on most other pork products will be reduced
by 50 percent in five years.
“Granting PNTR to Vietnam means the U.S. pork
industry will be able to ship more product to that
nation,” said NPPC President Joy Philippi, a pork
producer from Bruning, Neb. “This is a tremendous
victory for producers, who will benefit
significantly from access to a market of 84 million
people, where pork represents 72 percent of meat
consumption.”
According to Iowa State University economist Dermot
Hayes, the Vietnamese accession deal will increase
U.S. pork variety meat exports to the Southeast
Asian nation to $16.5 million by 2012 from $3.3
million in 2004 and will raise live hog prices by
$0.52 per hog.
Under a market-access agreement with the United
States that was finalized in May, Vietnam made
numerous improvements to its implementation of WTO
rules on sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures and
agreed to recognize the U.S. inspection system for
pork as equivalent to its inspection system.
Additionally, the U.S. will have recourse to WTO
dispute settlement mechanisms should Vietnam not
live up to any of its obligations, an avenue of
recourse that previously did not exist.
NPPC chaired the Agriculture Coalition for
U.S.-Vietnam Trade, which urged Congress to approve
PNTR for Vietnam. |
