Caricom’s 35th COTED meeting is urging the United States to engage early with Caribbean rum-producing nations with a view to continuing competitive access for their rums to US markets as the large subsidies they have granted to multinational producers threaten regional economies.
At a two-day meeting held earlier in the week, the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) said rum production and export are critical to the social and economic well-being of the Region.
In addition to being the largest agriculture-based export industry in Caricom, the rum industry is a substantial employer and a major contributor to foreign exchange earnings and government revenues, a press statement from the Caricom Secretariat said.
Caricom continues to have serious concerns about the threat to the competitiveness of Caribbean rum in the United States market resulting from the massive subsidies provided by the governments of the United States Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to multinational rum producers in those territories.
“The nature and scale of these subsidies are such that they threaten to distort rum markets not only in the US but elsewhere,” the release said. “Time is not on the side of the Caribbean rum industry.”
Taking into account the likely deleterious effect of these subsidies on the long-term viability of an industry which is of such critical importance to the economy of so many states in the Region, the COTED “supports strongly the deep commitment of Caricom countries to pursuing all avenues available to secure a resolution of this matter that restores the competitive balance in the marketplace.”
In the wake of this, the COTED is calling on the US to engage early with Caribbean rum-producing countries with a view to achieving an outcome that will support the continued competitive access for Caribbean rum to the US market.
