COMPARISONS were made in 1998 of the supply cost of milled rice and cargo rice from Guyana versus the U.S. and Vietnam: That report stated that the CET of 25% provided good protection against U.S. rice imports to the Caribbean but to date nothing has been done to stop the flow of substandard rice from entering the Caribbean markets without the CET.

Mr. Editor, Guyana was penalised by the Caribbean Court of Justice for not enforcing the Common External Tariff (CET) on cement from outside of CARICOM and the government will end up paying Trinidad Cement Limited a huge sum of money. The eleventh Board of Directors in 1998 discussed the major issues of the Common External Tariff (CET).At that time GRMEDA’s President, Mr. Beni Sankar was re-elected Chairman of the Caribbean Rice Association (CRA).

The CRA Board at that time was seeking the assistance of the CARICOM Secretariat, GRDB and other relevant authorities within CARICOM to ensure that rice from extra- regional sources does not enter the CARICOM market free of the CET. Dumping was a major problem for Guyana’s rice. In order to regularise and stabilise the Jamaican market, the Board did its best in pursuing claims of ‘dumping’ of rice in the Jamaican market by some large traders but that fell on deaf ears because of the unlevel playing field. I hope that the Guyana government is paying keen attention to what is taking place within CARICOM.

Guyana has signed on to the Caribbean Court of Justice as its final court. Yet most of the countries of CARICOM have not ratified the CCJ as its final Court of Appeal. Those countries which were caught not paying the CET before should be brought before the CCJ by Guyana and penalised for their action. Only then the flouting of the CET will stop.
MOHAMED KHAN