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@Jim_Cornelius

, 27 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter

I'm so glad you brought this up! This was raised by Liam Fox (it's coffee beans not coca). Here's why he's wrong about this. 1st some facts.

This will take a lot of tweets. Firstly processing a raw material by refining, blending, packaging & marketing adds value. A lot of value.

It is therefore a no brainer that German processed coffee is more profitable than African raw coffee.

You could just have easily used American sugar refining companies like Tate & Lyle to make the same argument.

But the quality of processed coffee deteriorates quickly. It therefore makes sense to do the processing in proximity to where its consumed.

The natural market for coffee processed in Europe is Europe. For North America, it's North America and for Africa it is Africa.

Now tariffs. Firstly note 34 African countries are on 0% tariff due to Everything but Arms agreement. But let's look at coffee producers.

Most are part of a scheme called Generalised System of Preferences whereby countries are on reduced or zeroed tariffs. As you will see.

There are also specific bilateral agreements reducing tariffs. So anyway let's look at tariffs for roasted (processed) non-decaf coffee.

The top 10 African Coffee producers are Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Madagascar, Gabon, DR of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Togo.

At least they are according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c… I thought 10 was enough to make the point.

I looked up the import tariff for roasted decaffeinated coffee on the EU's website. The code for non-decaf roasted is 0901 21(0000).

So here we go: Ethiopia = 0% tariff See: ec.europa.eu/taxation_custo…

The one exception! Gabon = 7.5% tariff See: ec.europa.eu/taxation_custo…

Democratic Republic of the Congo = 0% tariff See: ec.europa.eu/taxation_custo…

So only Gabon is under the full 3rd country tariff for roasted coffee. Why this would be the exception would need further investigation.

Anyway I think I've made my point. Liam Fox's thing about coffee beans is a total red-herring.

You might now say something like, but what about cocoa? Well I think if you want to make a point about those perhaps you should look it up.

Oh I forgot. Rwanda = 0% (Not found on EU website I had to look on UK Govt website for this). See: trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/c…

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