Introduction

In an effort to encourage ACP countries to embrace the Sugar Protocol (SP) in the mid-1970s, European officials were at pains to stress that, when fixing the annual price for sugar, account would be taken to ensure a “reasonable rate of return for a reasonably efficient sugar enterprise, over the long run.”  To be sure this was crucial if the privately- owned sugar companies operating in the ACP were to survive.

As I indicated last week, at that time the expectation was that, over the long-run, there would be intensified world commodity shortages as global supply would fail to keep pace with the growth of global demand.  As matters turned out, however, except for brief interludes (for example 1980-81) world raw sugar prices were relatively low until recently, after the SP came to an end in 2009.

Value of income transfers

Several estimates have been made of the value of income transfers to Guyana as a result of the SP arrangement.  As stated last week, these have been arrived at by multiplying the …..