MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Talks with EU trade commissioner Caribbean ministers meet in Guyana

Facing the prospect of cuts in the price Europe pays for Caribbean sugar and bananas, Caribbean Community trade ministers met with the European Union trade commissioner in Guyana on Thursday.

Caribbean Community sugar producers say they could lose up to US$ 90 million a year if the European Union carries out its plan to reduce the price. In October, the World Trade Organization said the European Union had broken international trade rules by subsidizing sugar producers.

To abide by WTO rules, the European Union also agreed to change its system quotas and duties on bananas by 2006. It had lost a challenge at the WTO initiated by the United States on behalf of US companies operating in Central and South America. Under the old rules, former colonies, mostly from the Caribbean, had almost exclusive access to the European market for their bananas.

??These are matters with enormous implications,'' said Caribbean Community Secretary-General Edwin Carrington, before the one-day meeting with EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

In Trinidad on Wednesday, Mandelson said the European Union recognized its ??special historical responsibility'' and was committed to giving the region preferential access to European markets.

??The last thing that we want to do is to disrupt this trade, to dislocate economies or to destroy people's livelihoods,'' he said.

The cuts in the price of sugar have been postponed.

The European Union had initially proposed a 37 percent reduction in the price of sugar over a three-year period, beginning with a 20 percent cut July 1 and another 17 per cent cut over 2006-2007.

The first cut will be postponed to July 2006, but it is not known how big it will be, Jamaica's Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition of the daily Jamaican Gleaner.

To help alleviate the shift to a more competitive import system for their former colonies, the EU has provided millions of euros in aid to help them diversify from banana production to other agricultural crops.

Former colonies of Britain, France, and the Netherlands, the 15 members of the Caribbean Community are in the final stages of establishing a single regional trade market.

Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad will inaugurate the single market Feb. 19, at the opening ceremony of the Caribbean Community's new head offices in Guyana. The three countries are the only Caribbean Community members who have passed the necessary laws to join the EU-style single market, which will allow duty-free trade between participating nations.

Other, smaller eastern Caribbean countries have agreed to join by the end of 2005, while Haiti and Suriname are aiming to enter by 2008.

About 15 million people live in Caribbean Community countries.