MEP says cheap imports are road to destruction
01 February 2006
DUP MEP JIM ALLISTER today took the opportunity of an adjournment debate in the European Parliament to raise the proposed closure of the Farm Fed Chickens and Barbour Thread factories. Casting the closures in the context of the flooding of the EU with cheap imports, Mr Allister said:-
"Last Friday Northern Ireland suffered the double blow of the loss of two factories, both the result of inability to compete with cheap imports. Farm Fed Chickens, a long-standing poultry factory in Coleraine announced its closure with 380 job losses and Barbour Threads in Lisburn was a casualty with 85 job losses in the textile sector.
Cheap imports are now the scourge of EU manufacturing and processing industries. With Commissioner Mandelson approach at the WTO it seems the Commission wants to rush further down this road of destruction.
In the name of those being driven from employment, right across Europe, I call for a root and branch re-assessment of our approach to cheap imports, so that the socio-economic consequences are properly considered. We can't go on haemorrhaging indigenous jobs in pursuit of dogma."
