Farmscape for January 24, 2018

The Canadian Meat Council is applauding news that the 11 nations involved in discussions aimed at creating a Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership have agreed to a deal.
Negotiations aimed at creating an 11 nation Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership were successfully concluded yesterday in Japan and the agreement is scheduled to be formally signed in early March in Chile.
Marcus Mattinson, the Communications Manager with the Canadian Meat Council, says Canada is a trading nation, Canada's meat sector is a trading sector and this deal provides an opportunity for the sector to expand its pacific market.

Clip-Marcus Mattinson-Canadian Meat Council:
The most significant part about this deal, I would say, is it keeps us competitive in this market.
This is a growing market.
It's a huge market for red meat, particularly beef and pork.
Without CPTPP we just can't stay competitive in that market and so we're glad to see this deal.
As far as changes in the years to come, for example Japan's beef tariffs will drop to Australia's level of 27 percent.
It's also and 11 percent advantage over the United States and other competitors for example and that's a number that will continue to go down.
The tariff would continue to go down every year and so this is just something we have to be a part of and we're glad that we are a part of this.
It means we can increase beef and pork sales by at least 500 million dollars and this is going to create the potential to support an additional 58 hundred jobs in Canada so we're very excited about this.

Mattinson applauds the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne in concluding the deal.
He says this is a great example of government working with industry toward the common interest of growing the economy and creating jobs.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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