Guyana rules Jamaica rice market

Guyana has complained that selected countries of the Caribbean Community's (CARICOM) 15-member bloc are not supplying timely and accurate data on their rice imports while sidestepping application for the 25 per cent common external tariff (CET) on imported rice.

As a consequence, the CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) has requested Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to account for their non-submission of data on their individual rice imports.

Dominica, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Lucia, Jamaica and Suriname have submitted the required data. Chairman of the Caribbean Rice Association (CRA), Beni Sankar, has declared that "The CARICOM system is just not working" in a CMC article published April 5 in The Financial Gleaner.

The answer to why there is so much concern on the non-submission of rice data can be found by referring to Jamaica's rice imports between the period of 2002 and 2004 and evaluating the value and share of Guyana's exports. In general, many of CARICOM's member countries are dependent on food imports, Jamaica being a good example.

Jamaica's food imports amounted to US$519.9 million in 2004, a 6.4 per cent increase over the 2003 import level; while in 2005, imports increased further by 16 per cent to US$602.9 million. The import value for the first eight calendar months of 2006 was US$404.3 million.

Jamaica's food dependency is a function of several factors including unavailability of planting materials, inadequate research and low productivity, minimal agro-processing, significant and unsatisfied food demand in the tourism sector and the impact of periodic adverse weather conditions on some food crops, as well as, the taste for products that the country does not or no longer produces - such as rice.

Source: Jamaica Gleaner