French wine and spirit exporters, already suffering a slide in their sales on the lucrative US market, face an ominous new hurdle next month when a law aimed at combating bioterrorism comes into effect in the US.
The Bioterrorism Act, due to come into force Dec. 12, streng-thens controls on foreign food products entering the US in a bid to lessen chances of a biological terrorist attack.
"The situation is serious," said Patrick Ricard, head of the association of French wine and spirits exporters (FEVS). "It affects the heart of France, from north to south, west to east. The components of this law pose an enormous complication for dealers because they must register via the Internet. Many of them are unfamiliar with this means of communication and do not speak English."
Wine industry transport specialists have warned that if a French company has not registered with US authorities by Dec. 12 it will find the US market closed to it until all the formalities are completed.
For France that could be costly. Last year, French wine and spirit exports to the US were worth 1.7 billion euros (US$1.9 billion), or 22 percent of all such French sales abroad and 75 percent of all food product sales on the US market, according to Ricard, who is also chairman of the drinks group Pernod-Ricard.
French food product exporters number between 1,100 to 1,200 but the US law could affect 10 times as many people since any bottler whose products could be sold in the US must conform to the new rules.
French wine exports to the US, apart from high-quality Bordeaux vintages, have plunged 25 percent in the last four months, Ricard said.
While the sales slide has coincided with sharp diplomatic differences over the war in Iraq between the US and France, Ricard stressed that the Bioterrorism Act was not directed at French products and has nothing to do with the French stand on Iraq.
French vintages accounted for just 15 percent of all US wine imports in August this year, down from 23 percent in April, according to the FEVS.
And by the end of the year, France could fall from second to fourth place among US wine suppliers after Italy, Australia and Chile.
Ricard said he hoped that the Wine Accord between the EU and the US, adopted in 1983 and renewed 10 times since, will be extended between now and Dec. 31 when it is set to expire.
"It's extremely important for wine but we have to be pragmatic and not exaggerate the situation," Ricard said.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
RSS