Israel’s minister of finance, Moshe Kahlon, Tuesday last week, signed regulations allowing duty-free import of a line of food products and products for the food industry, with the purpose of overcoming shortages from the previous year, regulating future price increases, and encouraging competition. In some of the instances the regulations are an extension of existing exemptions or increases in existing duty-free quotas, while some of the regulations are entirely new.
These are some of the fruit and vegetable products included in the new legislation, which goes into effect on July 1st 2015:
Almonds – the existing duty-free quota of 1,700 tonnes per year has been extended until the end of 2016, in an effort to regulate the significant price increases of almonds in recent years.
Shelled Peanuts – the existing exemption on the import of shelled peanuts for industry has been extended, and will allow imports of 1,200 tonnes per year until the end of 2016, on account of the gap between the demand for peanuts in the Israeli industry and the local peanut production.
Pears – the existing exemption with a quota of 3,000 tonnes per year has been extended until the end of 2015, due to low yields in local production and the likelihood that prices will be higher.
Orange Juice for Industry – the existing exemption of up to 5,000 tonnes per year has been extended until the end of 2017, due to a decrease in orange production in Israel which is expected to create shortages for the juice industry. The exemption applies to frozen orange juice in packages of 230 litres or more, or non-frozen orange juice in packages of 100 litres or more.
Potatoes for Industry – the existing quota has been increased by 6,000 tonnes so that duty-free imports of potatoes will total up to 11,000 tonnes per year until the end of 2015, this on account of a weather induced shortage in potatoes of suitable sizes for industrial processing.
