South Africa opens sunset review of anti-dumping duties on European frozen bone-in chicken

South Africa's trade regulator has opened a sunset review of anti-dumping duties on frozen bone-in chicken from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, with importers arguing the measures raise retail prices and the domestic poultry industry seeking five more years of protection at higher rates.

The International Trade Administration of South Africa (ITAC) opened the review on 14 August 2026 after finding sufficient preliminary evidence to examine the South African Poultry Association's (Sapa) argument that letting the duties expire would probably lead to continued or renewed dumping and material injury to regional producers. Sapa is asking for another five years of protection and substantially higher duties, according to the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE), which has filed a submission urging ITAC to allow the duties to expire. AMIE says Sapa's calculated dumping margins — 425.64% for Germany, 32.48% for the Netherlands and 61.84% for the United Kingdom — rest on price comparisons that are not sufficiently representative of the products under review.

ITAC's notice records that Sapa used German exports to Ghana to establish an export price for Germany, because the South African Revenue Service and TradeMap did not record the relevant direct trade with South Africa during the investigation period. AMIE argues that 88% of the Ghanaian volume used falls within a tariff category excluded from the original investigation, and that removing it more than halves the calculated German margin before other adjustments.

• Procedure: a sunset review is a fresh test of current evidence, not an automatic renewal — the law presumes these duties expire, and ITAC's preliminary finding allows the investigation to proceed but is not a final determination to renew.
• Claimed margins: Germany 425.64%, the Netherlands 32.48% and the United Kingdom 61.84%, as calculated by the domestic industry applicant.
• Consumer cost: AMIE cites South African Reserve Bank research estimating that tariffs, anti-dumping duties and safeguard measures raised frozen chicken retail prices by 16.2% over 2012–21 relative to what they would otherwise have been; that estimate covers several forms of protection, not these duties alone.
• Product scope: frozen bone-in chicken from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Anti-dumping duties on bone-in cuts feed straight into the landed cost of the lowest-priced chicken protein in a price-sensitive market. For buyers and suppliers the practical questions stay the same: which origin and cut, which certificate pack, and which entry point.

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Source: Business Day (South Africa), 13 October 2026, citing ITAC, the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (AMIE) and the South African Poultry Association (Sapa).