Audio: USMEF Set to Co-host IMS Economics Workshop in Tokyo

The U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) is preparing to co-host the International Meat Secretariat (IMS) Economics Workshop May 11-13 in Tokyo. .

Joel Haggard, USMEF senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific, is one of the workshop’s featured speakers. He will participate in a panel discussion titled Free Trade Agreements and Their Implications.

In the attached audio report, Haggard provides more details on the trade agreements that will be spotlighted in this panel discussion, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement and the recently completed China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. He also discusses the overall objectives of the workshop, which is targeted toward economists, trade analysts and other meat industry experts.

Held every two years, this will be the fifth economics workshop conducted by IMS. Japan’s Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation (ALIC) is co-hosting the event with USMEF.

TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: The U.S. Meat Export Federation is co-hosting the upcoming International Meat Secretariat Economics Workshop in Tokyo. In this USMEF report, we get more details on the workshop from one of the featured speakers, USMEF Senior Vice-President for the Asia Pacific, Joel Haggard.

Joel Haggard: We are looking forward to the International Meat Secretariat Economics Workshop in Tokyo. These meetings are held every two years and this year the workshop is being jointly hosted by ourselves and Japan’s industry organization, the Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation, or ALIC. Previous conferences have attracted participants from all major meat producing areas, and the IMS is a suitable umbrella for these discussions as the organization’s overall goal is to help all those in the livestock and meat producing chains everywhere. They champion science-based production and trade policies, and free and fair trade, which is going to be the theme of this year’s conference.

Joe Schuele: Haggard’s presentation will focus on new free trade agreements, which are changing the business landscape in Asia.

Joel Haggard: There couldn’t be a better time to discuss this topic, with TPP talks hopefully coming to a close and with new free trade agreements unfolding in Asia, such as the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement and China’s push for the Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership, which excludes the U.S., meat industry players need to stay in touch for these initiatives and understand their implications. For the U.S., these agreements are becoming very important. In Japan, Australia is already enjoying a tariff advantage on beef and it’s already making a difference in buying patterns. We watched the comprehensiveness of China’s FTA with Australia. That’s encouraging, it includes liberalization measures for many meat and agricultural products, which China has excluded from other previous agreements, but on the negative side these deals are happening without us and it is putting us at a competitive disadvantage.

Joe Schuele: For more on this and other trade issues, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Joe Schuele.