A $95 million beef about protection

New Zealand is losing about $95 million a year because of high tariffs on its beef exports, says an international report.

Meat New Zealand chief executive Neil Taylor is not surprised by the size of the loss.

"What this study says is that consumers in importing countries benefit to the tune of $13 billion annually if [global] trade in beef was totally liberalised."

The study, dubbed The Magellan Project, was commissioned by the Five Nations Beef Conference, a group of beef exporting countries committed to free trade comprising Mexico, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

New Zealand's biggest beef market is the United States, which takes about 80 per cent of our exports, followed by Canada, Japan and Korea.

Although all those countries have volume restrictions or tariffs, the highest by far belong to Japan and Korea, which have beef tariffs of 38 and 41 per cent respectively.

Even the United States, a Beef Conference member, limits New Zealand's beef exports to 213,000 tonnes, although production is such that New Zealand farmers are only just beginning to fill the quota.

Europe, however, offers New Zealand a quota of just 2684 tonnes.

Only the first stage of the report has been released.

The second stage will analyse the impact of non-tariff barriers and the political economics of key beef markets.

The full report is due out later this year or early next year.

- NZPA