Meatco gets Norwegian quotaThe Meat Board of Namibia has reallocated the remaining 400 tons of the 1 600-ton annual Norwegian beef quota to Meatco.
The development means Meatco will now export the entire 1 600 ton on offer to Norway this year. The reallocation, which took two months, was done after Brukkaros Meat Processors and Witvlei Meat, which had initially been allocated 225 tons and 175 tons respectively, failed to utilise their quotas before the 30 June deadline. Meatco welcomed the reallocation, saying it is the best-positioned company to extract the maximum benefit for Namibian farmers. By the end of June Meatco had already filled 56% of its annual quota of 1 200 tons. The company said the additional quota would go a long way in supporting producer prices in this drought year. “The allocation has come at just the right time for us to produce and ship the product before 24 October so that the 2016 quota is used before the end of December,” it said. Meatco thanked the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development and the Meat Board of Namibia for granting it this much-needed quota. It reassured the government and the Meat Board that it would fully utilise the quota allocated to Namibia this year.
“Meatco is aware of the potential implication if Namibia is not able to fully utilise the quota, as it places the government in a difficult position to request a quota expansion in future if we cannot fill the current allocation of 1 600 tons,” the company said.
ELLANIE SMIT