Thread by @Jim_Cornelius

Here's Tim Martin of Wetherspoon's, moaning, among other things, about tariffs on rice. Is he right to complain about it? What do you think?

independent.co.uk/news/business/…

OK, this gets complicated and boring, but here goes.

There are 93 HS codes for rice that differentiate on whether it's brown and the length of grain, the variety (basmati, other aromatic etc), packet size, whether it's parboiled or not. God it's awful.

gov.uk/guidance/class…

And there are all sorts of tariffs, and quotas, far too complicated to look into every one.

trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/h…

But what if we just look at the stuff we actually import? Well, here's a summary.

The vast bulk of our imports come under HS 100620 (brown rice) and 100630 (polished or white rice), but that still includes 86 HS codes. So let's drill down further.

Under HS100620 the vast majority comes under 10062098 and 10062017.

For 100630 (white rice) it's more mixed but the 5 codes 10063098, 10063092, 10063067, 10063096, 10063094 cover the bulk of it.

So we're down to seven 8 digit codes covering the vast majority of the rice imported into the UK. That's a bit more manageable. Lets go 10 digit.

At the 10 digit level its 26 codes. We can do this!

Here are the codes remaining ... over two tweets.

Brown rice.

1006201713, 1006201718, 1006201791, 1006201799, 1006209813, 1006209818, 1006209891, 1006209899

White rice.

1006306712, 1006306714, 1006306716, 1006306722, 1006306724, 1006306726, 1006306792, 1006306794, 1006306796, 1006309210, 1006309220, 1006309290, 1006309410, 1006309420, 1006309490, 1006309610, 1006309620, 1006309690.

I looked at every one of the 26 codes. Here's the first:

(Husked (brown) rice,Parboiled,Long grain length/width ratio equal to or greater than 3,Aromatic rice,Basmati rice .....

3rd country duty of €30/tonne, but keep looking.

trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/c…

Page 2

EPA countries, CARIFORUM countries, EASA Countries, SADC countries, GSP Annex IV countries (Everything but Arms (EBA)) all on 0%

Page 3

More GSP Annex IV countries (Everything but Arms (EBA)) countries.

All on 0%

Note Bangladesh is on there.

Page 4

More EBA countries.

Then some Central American countries, 0% tariff under quota. Then some other countires individually listed all on 0%,

But wait there's Bangladesh again. €10.66/tonne. That doesn't apply to them anymore because they're also a GSP country on 0%

Page 5/Last page.

More zeros, including for India and Pakistan. There's a conditions link/button on a few of the countries and that basically says it must come with a certificate certifying that it's authentic basmati or whatever.

So this was just the 1st of 26 I looked at, what about the rest?

I'm not going to bore you with all the screenshots, suffice to say that they're all basically the same, with minor differences. Sometimes the 3rd country tariff is €175/tonne. Sometimes there's a quota.

But it's always 0% under quota (remember Bangladesh is GSP).

Here's the link for 1006309620

Wholly milled rice, Long grain ...blah blah.. packings not exceeding 20 kg

Bottom half of the table. Imports from Thailand and USA = 0% under quota.

trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/c…

So yet again the facts don't align with the rhetoric.

Oh where do we get the bulk of our rice form anyway?

The vast majority from India. The rest (outside of the EU) from Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia and Guyana, all 0%, or 0% under quota.

And wine?

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