CARICOM trade ministers talk sugar

This week, trade ministers from the Caribbean Community will convene in Belize for the sixteenth session of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). While discussion will no doubt touch on the Haitian crisis, the focus will be on major trade issues affecting CARICOM, including sugar, and on Thursday, the ministers with responsibility for that commodity will be meeting in a special session. According to Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Jose Alpuche, Belize is particularly interested in the strategy for sugar at the World Trade Organization.

Jose Alpuche, C.E.O., Ministry of Foreign Trade

“We are fairly advanced in the legal process in the W.T.O. The matter is already before the W.T.O. and we are already working on A.C.P., the African Caribbean and Pacific group of states submission, which we are doing jointly. We actually already have two drafts of that, and we’re working on finalizing that; that process is already underway. As it relates to CARICOM, there are several levels of a strategy that we are developing, one in terms of a legal defence in the W.T.O., and two, the adjustments in the region. As you know, for us it is a critical matter and even so for other countries in the Caribbean: Jamaica for example, Guyana, are also major sugar producers and are also quite concerned about the socio-economic impact this ruling could have on their economies. So we are looking at all levels, and yes, there is a broad road map ahead for sugar.”