South Africa-VAT and poultry.

SOUTH AFRICA

VAT REMOVED FROM POULTRY

The minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana, in South Africa, has proposed scrapping the 14% VAT on poultry and chicken meat, in order to make the prices more accessible to the nations poor.

The has raised alarm bells with the red meat sector, who consider the removal to be unfair competition to the beef industry.

Beef consumption has risen 15pc in the last four years, to an annual consumption of 635,000 tons a year.

Its hard to believe that from 1945 to 1980, South Africa was the third largest beef exporter in the world, today it is an importing country.

South Africa imported 10,000 tons of mutton from Australia in 2008 and is the main market for Argentine beef offal