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And from political saccharine to real sugar.ASR BSI is optimistic after a series of CARICOM Ministerial Level agricultural meetings in Belize two weeks ago.

The meetings are being called a breakthrough by the he Sugar Association of the Caribbean.  ASR/BSI's Mac Maclachlan told us that it's all about Direct Consumption sugars which is now on par with Plantation White sugar:

Their recommendations go to the COTED trade meeting in Guyana in November. 

Mac MacLachlan - VP, ASR Group, Int'l Relations
"The consultant had concluded that unsurprising to us, the sugar are substitutable and are being used in many different parts of the world including of course here in Belize. There was a discussion about that in the stakeholder's meeting and a conclusion that basically, you can use the sugar but it needs to be a continued discussion with industrial users about what they need and what can be produced by sugar producers and the 3 recommendations brief were the first one is that, basically common external tariffs will be applied to all brown sugar in the region, but evidently it is not being applied to some brown sugar coming in from outside the region, it should be fully enforced with immediate effect. The second recommendation accepted by COTED was there should be a formal sugar monitoring mechanism which is basically to monitor sugar flows, supply, demand throughout the CARICOM region. At the moment, it's very difficult to pin point how much sugar is coming in, what sugar is being used for, what it's required for and we need a little more formality in that approach. The third recommendation that COTED Agriculture doctored was basically that, refined white sugar coming into the region from extra regional sources, should be ineligible for differentiated tariffs status treatment, provided that suitable products can be provided in the region for use by industrial users. When you put all these things together, what it is was really saying is look, this is bit of a halfway house to what we would like to achieve in the longer term."

Jules Vasquez
"One would say its full speed ahead; however you know that there is iron logic in the market place and that is we will buy what is cheapest once it meets minimum standards. You can change at the policy level, at the enforcement level, at the political level but to change at the operational economic level, is the hardest part."

Mac MacLachlan
"Yeah, it is a challenge Jules because you remember that the price of the refined white sugar entering CARICOM is effectively dump sugar. I believe sugar needs to have an element of protection, not as a way of subsidizing it, but simply as a way of levelling the playing field. This is really fundamental to the single market, we produce 450 tons of sugar in the CARICOM region, we consume 300 tons of sugar in the CARICOM region and for some reason, we import 200 tons of that from extra regional sources, leaving CARICOM sugar producers to export their rest at knock down prices in the world market. So, that doesn't sound to me like a functional single market."

According to reports, Belize, is the leading producer of plantation white sugar, accounting for nearly all of the region's output.