Dominica has imposed an immediate ban on corn beef from brazil.
Director of trade Matthan Walter says the ban has been imposed in light of a recent development involving the sale of rotten meat in Brazil.
Last week an announcement by police of “Operation Weak Flesh,” revealed that some meat packers had paid crooked inspectors to pass off rotten and adulterated meat as safe.
Meantime, Brazil’s government fought Wednesday to save the country’s meat industry from getting burned in a corruption scandal that has prompted several countries to pull Brazilian beef and chicken from the menu.
The country’s Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi has said that what has happened was done by a few bad apples, stating that the system or the industry was not at fault.
Maggi warned that Brazil’s chances are dwindling for realizing ambitions to raise market share in the worldwide food trade to 10 per cent from the current seven percent.
Brazilian meat exports were worth $63 million a day until last week’s announcement by police.
That figure of $63M then plummeted to about $74,000 on Tuesday.
Brazil’s government appealed Wednesday to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) and regional and international Governments to not impose “arbitrary” bans on the country’s more than $13 billion meat export industry.
two of its biggest markets, China and Hong Kong have suspended all imports of beef and chicken.
Other important markets, notably the European Union, have stopped any imports from the 21 businesses under investigation.
Japan, Brazil’s third-biggest market for chicken with $720 million in sales, imposed a similar limited ban, while Mexico has stopped imports of chicken produced by the 21 companies under scrutiny.
The scandal also broke right ahead of negotiations to seek a free-trade accord between the European Union and several South American countries including Brazil.
