The Canadian Meat Council remains hopeful Canada's free trade agreement with South Korea will be ratified in both countries in time to take effect January 1.
In September Canada's Prime Minister and South Korea's President witnessed the signature of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement, opening the door for the deal to move forward for ratification by the legislatures in the two countries.
Ron Davidson, the director of international trade, government and media relations with the Canadian Meat Council, told those on hand this week in Saskatoon for Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2014 timing is critical.
Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council:
In the case of Canada it was approved by the parliament, it's now in the senate, the senate is having hearings this week and we're hopeful that that senate approval will be achieved perhaps either the end of this week or some time next week.
We've also got very good information coming out of Korea.
There have been some discussions there and we are hopeful that Korea will approve the Canada Korea free trade agreement no later than December 2.
December 2 is an important date because normally the agreement will be implemented 30 days later so, if we can have it approved by December 2, we can them implement it on January 1 which is very important.
The United States will be going into their fifth round of tariffs cuts on January 1 and if we can't implement on that date we'd be even further behind.
So now at least Canadian exporters and Korean importers will know that we are back in the game.
We don't yet have tariff parity but at least we have a schedule to know when we will be getting there.
Davidson says Canada was progressing very well in Korea with sales of pork into that market in the order of $250,000,000 per year when the Americans started to implement their agreement and our exports have fallen dramatically since then.
He says hopefully, with certainty going forward, we will be able to stabilize sales and look forward to regaining some of that market share.
Source: Farmscape