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or months now we've been reporting on ASR/BSI's big plan to penetrate the Caribbean market and sell their plantation white sugar in bulk to Caribbean beverage producers and and manufacturers.  That would spell sweet salvation for ASR/BSI which is at a crossroads - as European preferential markets have been eliminated and world prices have bottomed out.  

But, penetrating that CARICOM market has proved difficult, due mainly to the fact that the Caricom Single Market and Economy is really not all that it has cracked up to be.  And while Caribbean products should get preference, mostly, they just get a lot of red tape and passive/aggressive barriers to trade.  At the same time, imported non CARICOM sugar, which should be taxed with an external tariff of 40% gets an ease.  

And, you might be surprised to know that it's Guatemalan sugar producers who benefit from all this.  That's right, Guatemalan refined sugar is plentiful in the Caribbean, where importers buy it cheap, cheaper than they can buy Belizean sugar.  

ASR/BSI's William Neal discussed that upside down trade relationship today with CTV-3 in Orange Walk:…

Today, the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Commerce put out a release saying it's working to get Belizean sugar into CARICOM. 

The release says, quote "The real challenge is to convince manufacturers in CARICOM to make a switch from imported refined white sugar to a substantially upgraded plantation white sugar…COTED Ministers will make the decision on whether or not to terminate the derogation allowed for extra-regional refined white sugar from the Common External Tariff and instead commence full application of the common external tariff rate of 40%.