From the ABC:
Australia’s northern cattle industry has been told the Indonesian Government will be issuing just 50,000 cattle import permits for the current third quarter (Q3).
The permits are still yet to be released, but news of the low allocation started to flow through on Friday evening, with one cattle exporter telling ABC Rural the result was “absolutely devastating” and would cause a “huge shipping headache”.
The allocation for the July to September quarter is well down on the 200,000 head which exporters and importers had been lobbying for, and is well off the 250,000 permits allocated the quarter before.
Tracey Hayes, from the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, said the low allocation had caught the industry by surprise.
“It was predicted to be quite a bit higher. Around 200,000 permits [for Q3] was the number we were expecting. So it has been surprising to hear reports of 50,000,” she said.
Interested in reader feedback. Any idea what is going on here?
