The organization says it doesn’t mind if the EU does so unilaterally, as long as it gets rid of the insecurity created by a customs regime that causes even greater problems than trade tariffs.

Dansk Fisk Secretary Poul Melgaard Jensen made the calls at a recent roundtable conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) conference, which hosted a number of countries’ fishing industry members, was held ahead of forthcoming negotiations on the application of customs duties on so called non-agricultural market access goods (NAMA), also known as industrial goods.

Until now, while WTO talks have only extended to goods classed as agricultural goods, the next step is expected to deal with industrial goods, which includes seafood products.

Dansk Fisk members include around 60 importers, exporters and processing factories.

Processors in Denmark increasingly are becoming reliant on imported seafood from across the globe, including New Zealand hoki, Bangladeshi prawns and Canadian shrimp.

“The uncertainty and the unpredictability of customs duties arrangements is by far the biggest problem, the level of tariff rates only comes next,” Melgaard Jensen said.

Problems

Citing two examples, Melgaard Jensen said an importer concluding a six-month hoki contract from Argentina, for instance, on the basis of the zero tariff duty into the EU, may suddenly without warning be hit with 15 percent duty when the trade bloc’s imports of the species pass a designated threshold.

Black tiger prawns are imported under Malaysia’s preferential duty rate, meaning they are subject to special low rate for export to EU member states, Melgaard Jensen said.

While importers must provide proof of Malaysian origin, three years later they may then be charged corrective tariff duties because proof of origin cannot be verified by Malaysian authorities, he said.

Melgaard Jensen said Danish processors would rather live without the preferential system than face the uncertainty this entails.

Dansk Fisk says it expects seafood consumption to see greater increases outside of the EU in the coming decades.

As an exporting nation, Denmark is increasingly pressing for customs duties to be abolished on imported raw materials, giving extra significance to the NAMA talks.

Danes want end to EU seafood customs duties