The National Milling Company (NAMILCO) continues to press the Government of Guyana to bring an end to what the company’s Managing Director Bert Sukhai has described as the dumping of flour produced in Trinidad and Tobago in Guyana.
Sukhai has repeatedly cited the importation of flour from two mills in the twin-island Republic and the marketing of the product here below the price at which locally produced flour is sold as a strategy designed to undermine the viability of NAMILCO. Additionally, he told Stabroek Business last week that the importation of flour cannot be justified by arguments associated with reliability of supplies of locally produced flour. Sukhai conceded that while NAMILCO had no control over the movement of wheat prices on the international market, the company had put mechanisms in place to ensure its wheat supplies and, by extension the availability of flour.
Sukhai who last week told Stabroek Business that the controversy over the importation of flour from Trinidad and Tobago into Guyana could be taken to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) said there are other advantages to be derived from bringing an end to the ‘dumping’ practice. He said that the removal of the cheaper imported flour from the local market would move NAMILCO closer to its 1.5 million bag annual flour production capacity and would allow for an increase in the production of wheat bran, a by-product of the flour production process and a critical source of animal feed.
According to Sukhai NAMILCO has the capacity to produce 500,000 bags of wheat bran annually but that this would only be possible if the local flour market allowed the company to produce more flour. “What would help,” Sukhai said, “is to limit the imports of flour since for every 3 bags of flour imported into Guyana Namilco produces one bag less of feed.”
According to Sukhai finding export markets for locally produced flour is not easy given the costs associated with purchasing and shipping wheat into Guyana and the cost of shipping flour back out of Guyana.
NAMILCO is contending that the while government’s removal of the requirement of a licence for the importation of flour is designed “hopefully to reduce the food bill” it could further impact on the capacity of NAMILCO to produce bran. He added that the situation may well reach a stage where local wheat bran supplies could become seriously threatened.
NAMILCO currently markets wheat bran at US$140 per ton while the world market price is now US$180 and Sukhai says that when the freight cost of around US$80 per ton is added, that would have serious implications for foreign exchange loss to the country.
While local livestock owners have also been using rice bran as part of their feed stock, Sukhai says that he doubts that there is sufficient rice bran to compensate for the wheat bran shortfall since even at the peak of the rice crop, demand for the wheat bran is very high.
Local farmers have expressed concern over what they say are inadequate supplies of wheat bran on the local market and according to Sukhai NAMILCO has come under further pressure from buyers who arrive at the Mill bearing letters from the Ministry of Agriculture requesting that they be sold particular quantities of feed. Sukhai said that NAMILCO’s inability to respond adequately to some of those requests has sometimes led to difficult situations and he called for the cessation of those requests.
