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Kiwi wine makers rage against food safety, border fee proposals

Xinhua, January 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

New Zealand's food and biosecurity regulator Monday unveiled proposals for a new test fee system for food importers and exporters, and immediately came under fire from the country's burgeoning wine industry.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said it was inviting feedback until Feb. 20 on the proposals to increase charges to provide food safety and border services in order to meet growing demand and keep up with inflation.

"Biosecurity and food safety are critical to the operation and viability of New Zealand's primary industries," MPI deputy director-general Dan Bolger said in a statement.

"Without these systems, New Zealand's 38.3-billion-NZ-dollar ( 29.84 billion U.S. dollars) primary sector exports would never get past importing countries' borders and New Zealand's primary industries would be exposed to a much greater risk of potentially devastating pests and diseases," he said.

"Over and above that benefit to industry, the systems ensure the safety for consumers of New Zealand products, at home and abroad."

The proposals amounted to a total increase of 12.8 million NZ dollars (9.97 million U.S. dollars), or "a small fraction of 1 percent" of New Zealand's primary industries.

However, the New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) industry body immediately stated its strong opposition to the proposals, claiming they would take 2.9 million NZ dollars (2.26 million U.S. dollars) a year from the wine industry to meet the costs of its wine regulatory program.

"Wineries currently pay just over 200 million NZ dollars (155. 82 million U.S. dollars) each year in excise to the government," NZW chair Steve Green said in a statement.

The proposals were "manifestly unjustifiable" as, unlike the wine industry, none of the other major primary sectors also paid a product-specific tax, said Green.

Wine exports had grown by more than 13 percent a year from 435 million NZ dollars (338.92 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 to 1.33 billion NZ dollars (1.03 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014 and were expected to reach 2 billion NZ dollars (1.55 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020, he said. Endi