Advertise On EU-Digest

Annual Advertising Rates

3/2/06

EU raps Australia wheat monopoly

JTW News

"EU raps Australia wheat monopoly
The European Union agriculture commissioner has used a visit to Australia to call on the government to change the way it exports wheat.

Mariann Fischer Boel told the trade and agriculture ministers this week that the Australian Wheat Board's export monopoly needed to end.

The AWB is the world's biggest exporter outside the US.

But it has been accused of paying $222m in bribes to Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the UN oil-for-food programme.

The EU has long held the position that state trading enterprises like AWB and the Canadian Wheat Board had trade-distorting powers, because of their monopoly on exports."

No comments: