The National Milling Com-pany’s (NMC) 25 per cent increase on flour and smaller increases on other products from today will last at least four months since the Mill knows the prices it will pay for the next two shipments.
According to the new price list, a 45 Kg bag of flour will now be $7,500 up from $6,000; a 22 Kg bag will now cost $3,825 instead of $3,075; the 11.25 Kg bag will now cost $2,225 up from $1,850; the 10 Kg bag will now cost $1,795 up from $1,460; the 2 Kg bag will now cost $370 instead of $300 and the 1 Kg bag is now $185 instead of $150. Other products saw increases from 25 per cent to as low as 4 per cent. Speaking to members of the media at a press conference yesterday, CEO of the Mill Bert Sukhai said that while wheat went up 120 per cent since January 2007, flour only increased by 60 per cent over the same period.
“This caused us to suffer losses as other factors constrained us from further increasing flour prices,” Sukhai said, adding that other countries in the Caribbean had increased prices at the beginning of April. The NMC had instituted an increase of 16 per cent on the price of flour at the beginning of March this year in response to the Government’s VAT zero-rating of flour, to neutralize the impact on its sales by what it referred to as dumped flour from Trinidad.
The CEO provided a chart which showed that Guyana lists lower prices for flour than Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada and St Vincent. Guyana was around US$27 per 45 kg sack while Barbados was around US$42 for the same quantity.
According to Sukhai, the wheat crops this year in Canada and the United States are good and this news will result in reduced wheat prices “but we will not benefit from this until September. In the meantime we are forced to increase prices by approximately 25 per cent to cushion the high prices paid for the last and next shipments of wheat.”
Sukhai said that the NMC is committed to providing the best quality product and service to ensure prices remain competitive.
He explained that grain prices increases are as a result of farmers switching to producing grains that give higher returns, adverse weather conditions, large economies like India and China consuming more wheat-based foods and key wheat producing countries restricting exports.
Sukhai said that having placed the company’s telephone number in the press notice, he has received several calls from various parts of the country complaining of overcharging. He said that it is for this reason that the company didn’t make the announcement much earlier, for fear of hoarding.
Further, the CEO said that no agreement has been signed with Antigua as reported in the regional press. He said that Antigua “came to us for a small shipment because our prices were the cheapest in the Caribbean.” He said that the Mill sold flour to Antigua at its current prices.
Sukhai said too that Trinidad’s action of “dumping” flour on the Guyana market was hurting the company. “We had to keep our prices low and as such we lost money.” Sukhai said. He expressed the hope that with the new increases, the company is able to break even or even turn a profit.
