After Brazil, Colombia has now also introduced anti-dumping measures on French fries from the Netherlands and Belgium. The potato industry fears that such measures will spread like an oil slick in South America. However, do the charges actually work?
At the beginning of 2017, Brazil introduced an anti-dumping duty on French fries from the Netherlands, among others. The Dutch export of fries was here seriously affected, more than other countries that had to deal with a levy. This is because Dutch companies had to pay the highest import duties.
Alternative channels
Uit an analysis Annual Insight shows that exports of Dutch products to Brazil have decreased by 27,5 million tons to 57 million tons. Although exports no longer took place from the Netherlands, the internationally operating chip factories have managed to sell the fries via other countries.
Brazil imported more from Poland, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Belgium. Together the countries exported an additional 25,5 million tons of potatoes to Brazil. The levies therefore had the effect of only 2 million tonnes less being imported, Annual Insight calculated.
Desired effect?
The irony is that exports from these countries are done by the same companies as the companies that would otherwise do it from the Netherlands. Brazil's domestic market is therefore not improving, although that was the intention of the import duties. So the question is whether the measures taken by Colombia recently set will have the desired effect.