Economic Rights director gathers with citriculture representatives in Bebedouro.
In order to collect information that may be useful on the investigation of the citrus industries cartel, Brazil's Economic Rights director Bárbara Rosemberg and the coordinator of Market Control Mariana Tavares de Araújo gathered with citrus growers, politicians and other citriculture representatives at Associtrus head-office, in Bebedouro.
Bárbara learned that the sector is aggrieved due to the substancial elimination of competition and that the sale of Cargill Citrus to the Cutrale and Fischer groups is only one more step on the industries carteling process. This first contact is informal, so, none of the accusations presented here will be used on the lawsuit. We came to Bebedouro to learn the dynamics of the sector and how things work so we can determine the focus and approach to start the investigation. This meeting has been extremely elucidative for this purpose said Rosemberg.
Even though the meeting had a similar approach to the one with CADE(*) counselor Luiz Carlos Prado, on june 10th, the Economic Defense Bureau will investigate more extensively the sector's cartel. The Economic Defense Bureau will do the investigation, issue a report and forward it to CADE, which is the agency responsible to judge the matter. Counselor Prado came here to discuss exclusively the Cargill case but our visit aims at raising all the arguments to be used on our investigation about the citrus industries cartel, states Barbara.
Congressman Antônio Carlos Mendes Thame supports Associtrus for considering citriculture one of the most unbalanced sectors of Brazil's economy. The inequality between citrus industry and growers is clear, so the only way to improve the citrus growers and workers situation is with the help of CADE and the Economic Defense Bureau, which Associtrus is trying to bring. I support Associtrus and from now on, I will work effectively with CADE to help provide the citrus growers a better commercial relationship with the citrus industries said Thame.
Itápolis mayor Moacir Ziteli also defends the idea of uniting all growers to search for economic balance on the sector. Citriculture represents 80% of our towns economy, so we support all actions that benefit citrus growers. In Itapolis there are 11 million orange trees that produce 20 million orange boxes each crop said Ziteli.
Associtrus president Flávio Viegas believes the entity's goals were achieved at the meeting. We exposed clearly all the citriculture problems and were oriented about the best ways of transmitting the information we have to the government. Associtrus role is to report all these problems to all instances of the government so they can support us (growers) to keep our activity going, which is very important to the brazilian economy informs Viegas.
