After experiencing three years of favourable returns, pig producers in Australia (and
\nmajor competing countries) faced difficult economic circumstances between mid-
\n2002 and the end of 2003. World prices fell and, in some countries (including
\nAustralia), feed costs were high. These trends were exacerbated in Australia by an
\nappreciating dollar relative to the currencies of major competing countries.
\nCompetition on the domestic market from imported pigmeat has been strong and
\nimports have been steadily rising since quarantine liberalisation in the mid-1990s.
\nExports also grew strongly after 1997-98, but declined in 2003-04.
\nPig prices have been recovering in recent months, and feed prices have returned to
\nthe range experienced before the 2002-03 drought. Nevertheless, the industry is
\nconcerned about the economic sustainability of many domestic producers and
\nprocessors and their longer run competitiveness.
\nThe Productivity Commission has been asked to examine the current situation of,
\nand outlook for, the Australian pigmeat industry. It has also been asked to consider
\nwhether any government and\/or industry measures (including regional measures)
\nare necessary to enhance the competitiveness of the industry. In undertaking the
\ninquiry, the Commission is required to take into account:
\n\u2022 the structure and regional distribution of the industry
\n\u2022 key factors influencing the profitability of the industry, and the extent to which
\nthese factors are short or long term influences
\n\u2022 trends and factors influencing demand and supply, including imports and exports
\n\u2022 the competitiveness of the industry, including competitiveness relative to
\ninternational competitors, and efforts by the domestic industry to enhance
\ncompetitiveness
\n\u2022 the impact and effectiveness of existing and recent government and industry
\nprograms.
\nThe focus of this inquiry differs from the inquiry undertaken by the Commission in
\n1998 where possible safeguard actions in regard to pigmeat imports into Australia
\nwere examined (PC 1998). In that inquiry, the Commission responded to a request
\nfrom the Australian Government to assess whether safeguard action was warranted
\nagainst pigmeat imports in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO)
\nrules. The terms of reference for this inquiry, however, do not request the
\nCommission to determine whether safeguard (or provisional safeguard) measures
\nare warranted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After experiencing three years of favourable returns, pig producers in Australia (and major competing countries) faced difficult economic circumstances between mid- 2002 and the end of 2003. World prices fell and, in some countries (including Australia), feed costs were high. These trends were exacerbated in Australia by an appreciating dollar relative to the currencies of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[930],"tags":[8882,13816,19216,5150,3814,2043,6784,190,583,231,286,588,6904,46,5108,19694,20007,1171,20792,13370,10858,2393,94,8487,10859,14784,14,5151,16262,2655,4257,17743,24467,1499,12671,5269,20912,20911,4874,20757],"class_list":["post-3700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-al","tag-ass","tag-assess","tag-australia","tag-competitive","tag-competitiveness","tag-cos","tag-cost","tag-costs","tag-cover","tag-dust","tag-economic","tag-fee","tag-feed","tag-feed-cost","tag-feed-prices","tag-gh","tag-industry","tag-influence","tag-ken","tag-mark","tag-market","tag-meat","tag-meat-industry","tag-nat","tag-ness","tag-pig","tag-pigmeat","tag-pl","tag-price","tag-prices","tag-prod","tag-productivity-commission-pigmeat-imports","tag-profitability","tag-provis","tag-report","tag-some","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-vision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}