No 40% CARICOM tariff on white sugar until regional producers can supply - Dookhoo
The Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) of CARICOM will not erect a 40% common external tariff (CET) against extra-regional white sugar until regional producers are able to supply the quantity and quality needed by regional manufacturers for their food and beverages operations.
This is according to Ramesh Dookhoo, Chairman of the Trade and Investment Committee of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), who attended the meeting last week.
This decision is in line with an understanding reached by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) to the effect that a CET will not be applied to extra regional refined sugar for use by food and beverage manufacturers until at least 2022, when production of the product is expected to begin in Guyana.
GMSA President, Clinton Williams, had previously said that the body is unreservedly against a CET on refined sugar as planned plantation white sugar is a different product from refined sugar, and therefore does not qualify for protection under community law.
COTED met in Guyana on November 18th and 19th, 2019 for its 49th meeting, during which several issues important to Guyana were expected to be discussed and decided on. Up to yesterday, neither COTED nor the CARICOM Secretariat had released any information on what specific matters were discussed, and any decisions taken.
Stabroek News has attempted to solicit details on the outcome of the meeting from Guyana’s Foreign Secretary, Carl Greenidge, to no avail.
Dookhoo noted that in the first place, “the governments of the Caribbean applied for and have gotten the waiver (for refined sugar) because the product is not available in the Caribbean…” Against this backdrop, he lamented that “manufacturers are being portrayed as anti-national and anti-Caribbean.”
“If they want the CET, let them make the refined sugar … and everyone will buy the refined sugar”, Dookhoo said of the lobby by sugar producers locally, and in the region for the CET against refined sugar.
Specifically speaking to the intention expressed by GuySuCo to produce refined sugar by 2022, Dookhoo pointed out that “this country consumes around 40,000 tons of refined sugar a year …I do not know that they can set up to do plantation white in 2022.”
Sharing his reasoning, Dookhoo referenced GuySuCo’s historical and routine difficulties in producing quotas of brown sugar it has set for itself. Noting that refined sugar is more expensive to produce given the capital, workforce, and scale of operations required, Dookhoo said that he has “no faith in Guyana” to be able to produce refined sugar in the quantities and quality required, particularly by the deadline which has been set.
Last week, Trinidad Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopie-Scoon, had told Stabroek News that plantation white sugar does not meet the standards of white sugar, and therefore was not suitable for use by Trinidad’s manufacturing sector engaged in the production of foods and beverages.
Any decision taken, she had said, would have to ensure that the standards Trinidad has been able to achieve, which has bolstered international competitiveness, is maintained.
The push for the CET against extra-regional white sugar is being driven by interests in Belize and Guyana. The sugar industry in Barbados and Jamaica also stands to benefit from a deal which favours plantation white sugar.