21.03.2014

LEI Report (Wageningen University and Research Centre): The research has been commissioned by AVEC

EU poultry meat producers have to comply with legislation on environ-mental protection, animal welfare and food safety. This legislation has increased the production costs of poultry meat. At the same time the EU is negotiating with other countries or groups of countries to liberal-ise trade in agricultural products. This report examines how lowering import levies impacts the competitiveness of the EU poultry industry. The results show that the offer price of broiler breast fillet in 2011 of some third countries was already below the average EU price. Despite the current import levy on breast fillet, these third countries can be competitive in the EU market. In a scenario with 50% lower import levies and no additional levy, Brazil, Argentina, the USA, Ukraine and Thai-land have a lower offer price for breast fillet than the EU poultry meat industry.