| EU final sugar cut takes effect…Guyana’s sugar industry has entered a critical phase rather quietly on October 1, last as the European Union (EU) effected the last of a phased price cut.Over a three-year period, a preferential price agreement made almost 35 years ago with Guyana and a number of other Caribbean countries will now have to deal with a 36 per cent drop in sugar price because of EU reforms.The cuts will mean Guyana will see earnings drop by $7B annually, Government has said.Prices have been slashed from 523 Euros to 332 Euros over three years.Commenting on the impact of the price cuts on the local sugar industry, Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud acknowledged that it would become much tougher for this country.Government is hoping that this new state-of-the-art sugar factory at Skeldon, Berbice, will be part of efforts to keep alive an industry that is fighting to bring its cost down. According to Persaud, who is also the Acting Finance Minister,Cheap Authentic Jerseys, “…Guyana’s main issue with the EU is the price cut and the fact that the EC is not a buyer of last resort. All ACP (African/Caribbean/Pacific) suppliers must now conduct due diligence with prospective buyers to determine which companies they will supply sugar to and with no guarantee of a buyer if the chosen company collapses.”With sugar imports to EU limited to 3.5M tonnes because of the reforms, sugar trade will essentially be conducted under what is called a Duty Free Quota Free (DFQF) system.Under the new sugar agreement with EU, Cariforum (Guyana, Barbados, Belize,Cheap China NFL Jerseys, Jamaica, and Dominican Republic) has a safeguard threshold of 528,000 tonnes, which will be triggered if the overall 3.5M tonnes of imports is delivered at the same time with 1.6M tonnes from former ACP non Lower Developed Countries (LDC).Explaining this, the minister said that it is because the LDC countries have been given unlimited access.“The likelihood of the 3.5M tonnes being met by 2015 is low. GuySuco (Guyana Sugar Corporation) has confirmed a Long Term Contract with Tate and Lyle,Calvin Ridley Jersey, for the period 2008-2015 for a minimum of 185,Discount NFL Jerseys,000 tonnes sugar per year.”With 2015 being the end of the current sugar regime, discussions on the new regime will begin in 2012, Persaud disclosed.Among the other plans Guyana and GuySuco have, includes the marketing of a significant percentage of sugar production in value-added branded sugars to regional and international markets.Currently,Cheap Jerseys From China Online, Guyana also has a 12,000 tonnes Tariff Rate Quota with the US.To deal with the price cut, government has built a new state-of-the-art sugar factory in Skeldon,Cheap Jerseys China, Berbice in its attempt to modernize the industry, which over recent years has abandoned a number of estates.With hundreds of sugar workers heading to other areas in search of work, sugar production fell last year because of strikes, labor shortage and bad weather.Many Caribbean countries have diversified with Barbados and St Kitts looking more and more to tourism.In 2006, EU Commission declared that the Sugar Protocol, under the terms of which sugar has been exported to the EU by ACP countries since 1975, is to be renounced at the end of September 2007, with a view to its ending on 30th September, 2009.Guyana had initially refused to sign the new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)presented by EU but had relented under a looming possibility of losing its market there.The EU had proposed at that time, that in return for the negotiated guaranteed prices,Cheap Stitched Jerseys, greater access to their markets would be offered to the ACP nations.Under the agreement, importers of ACP sugar would be required to pay at a certain price level during the period October, 2009 September, 2012.After that, this price level would be replaced by a pricing based on the current market system at intervals of six months. In return, the EU would provide improved duty-free quota-free (DFQF) market access to both existing Sugar Protocol (SP) and LDC countries, as well as offering initial market access to ACP states, which are not currently party to the Protocol, during the period January 2008 to September 2015.During 2004, a number of countries including Brazil, Australia and Thailand successfully challenged World Trade Organization’s sugar regime.As a result, the WTO ruled that the EU was subsidising sugar exports excessively, in violation of their commitments in the WTO. The pressure led to a major reform of the sugar regime, which included a 37 per cent reduction in the domestic support price for sugar over three years beginning in 2006.Many ACP countries are high-cost producers, which will not be competitive with the proposed prices cuts.Some like Guyana have already begun to try to make their industries more efficient. |
