And so while all plans are being made to get these direct consumption sugars into CARICOM, one seasoned observer has serious doubts. Orange Walk South representative Jose Mai - who is also a cane farmer - worked at the marketing board in his life before politics, and he told us how hard it was trying to sell Belizean RK beans into CARICOM:…
Jules Vasquez
"Is there any appetite in that market for sugar produced within the Caribbean?"
Hon. Jose Mai - Area Representative, Orange Walk South
"Jules our CARICOM brothers don't have appetite for anything that's produced locally, anything."
Jules Vasquez
"You've lived it..."
Hon. Jose Mai
"I've lived it, I was director of marketing for the ministry of agriculture. We use to export, I think we still export red kidney beans and they would make all sort of excuses to say you're beans too red, the grain is not long, its round; it is too hard, it measured by culpability, they would make all kind of excused to import from some place in the US or Canada - get a waiver and not pay this 25% c.e.t and they would be happy. And when they import, they import millions of pounds, so our CARICOM brothers in quotes are not so much our CARICOM brothers when it comes to trade. So that's another thing, they would do anything to disallow our sugar getting into CARICOM."
Jules Vasquez
"Serious?"
Hon. Jose Mai
"They would."
Jules Vasquez
"So and we have so much hope, ASR/BSI is hoping on that, Santander is hoping on that. Are you pitching our wagon to a shark?"
Hon. Jose Mai
"Well, Jules when everything is sinking around you the only thing you had to hold on to is to hope."
Email
Print