CARICOM trade meeting to address future of sugar

CARICOM’s trade ministers are to meet in George-town today and will consider several recommendations which will determine whether the sugar industry in the region has a future, according to expert on the Caribbean, David Jessop.

Writing in his column in the last Sunday Stabroek,   Jessop said that this long overdue discussion by CARICOM’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) will examine whether there are ways in which the region’s cane sugar producers, via tariffs and other measures, can redirect output towards meeting the regional market’s requirements.

He pointed out that just over a month ago, on October 1, the industry lost the last element of its longstanding preferential market in the European Union (EU) which abolished national sugar production quotas in Europe. He said that according to industry analysts the result will be that the price paid for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) cane sugar will “very rapidly reduce and, as Europe becomes self-sufficient in beet sugar and begins to export, cane sugar imports into Europe will fall to zero”.