ON 19 November, 2019, Trade Ministers, at the Forty-Ninth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), agreed on principles that could radically alter future prospects for CARICOM sugar industries and permit them to regain their place in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

Directors of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean (SAC) are due to meet in early December to reflect on the COTED meeting outcomes, which agreed to the incremental enforcement of tariffs on imported white sugar as and when the region produces it.
In a release, SAC says the decision will provide the incentives needed by regional sugar producers for continued investment in value-added products, with the confidence that they will have a home in their own regional market.

Presently, over two-thirds of market demand in CARICOM is imported from outside the region, leaving sugar producers little choice than to export their own product on the global market at unremunerative prices. The meeting also agreed to the immediate establishment of a mechanism to monitor all regional sugar flows. This will play a major part in strengthening enforcement of existing arrangements for extra-regional sugar imports, providing a realistic assessment of supply and demand moving forward. Part of this will be to ensure that the CET on brown sugar, which is currently entering the market from outside the region, must be rigorously enforced by member states.

The COTED decisions came following a detailed analysis of the widespread use of plantation white sugar in manufacturing both globally and within the region. These decisions also reflect an understanding between manufacturers and sugar producers that when the quality of regional production is assured, it will receive tariff protection in accordance with the provisions of the Revised Treaty.