KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies need to adopt an open trade policy to safeguard food security in the region amid COVID-19, says a new policy brief by the APEC Policy Support Unit.
The recent policy brief on export restrictions and food security in the context of the pandemic shows that the variety of movement restrictions implemented across borders has affected the supply of food, especially perishables such as fruits, vegetables, dairy, seafood, and meat.
“Some governments have reacted to episodes of panic buying by implementing export bans or restrictions on certain food products, hoping to secure the availability of food,” APEC Policy Support Unit senior analyst Carlos Kuriyama said in a statement Thursday.
Kuriyama, who is the author of the policy brief, expounded that these measures could threaten food security and increase food prices, a detrimental scenario for citizens, especially the poorest households.
He said even though export restrictions were allowed in certain situations by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, they would be less trade-distorting to improve access to food by reducing import tariff rates than by putting export restrictions in place.
“By doing so, domestic consumers and firms will have access to greater quantities of food products at lower prices due to the increased availability of imported products,” he said.
According to the policy brief, at least four APEC economies have implemented export restrictions, affecting food products since the beginning of the year.
These measures include temporary export bans and quotas on food products such as rice, buckwheat, soybeans, wheat, maize, barley and eggs — all critical staples for families.
The APEC region’s food security environment is in better shape today compared to the global food crisis of 2007–2008 as its collective stock-to-use ratios for maize, rice and wheat has doubled since then.
However, only less than one-third of APEC economies improved their rice and wheat ratios, and more than half of the economies currently have their maize stocks-to-use ratios at low levels, below 10 per cent.
“This reinforces the need to keep open trade policies as a tool to improve food stocks during this pandemic,” said Kuriyama.
He said strengthening food security requires collective efforts in addition to open trade policies, such as maintaining connectivity, improving resiliency of food supply chains, keeping transparency, and reinforcing international cooperation, among others.
In response to COVID-19, the policy brief acknowledges that food security is an important and complex area that requires further analysis.
While the number of export restrictions and bans in APEC does not seem to be high at this point, the policy brief highlighted the importance of staying vigilant and intensifying cooperation efforts among member economies to avoid any escalation of these types of measures.
APEC Secretariat executive director Tan Sri Dr Rebecca Sta Maria said APEC needs to ensure that the food supply chain remained open and available for all citizens, including vulnerable communities.
“The last thing we want to see in the current pandemic is a food crisis where the availability of food staples are scarce and prices are high,” she added.