The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) has praised the announcement by President Irfaan Ali of the lowering of financing costs for poultry farmers here and says the regional industry can potentially displace extra-regional imports of US$149 million per annum.
On Saturday, Ali announced that the interest rate for loans to the poultry sector would fall from 8% to 5% following discussions with four commercial banks.
In a statement yesterday, the CPSO said that poultry meat is among the nineteen agri-food opportunities highlighted in the Region’s Twenty-Five by Twenty-Five goals for extra-regional import displacement, endorsed by the CARICOM Heads of Government (CHoGs). It said that this initiative, announced by President Ali, properly addresses the key issues of the ‘cost of finance’ and the ‘cost of feed’, which have been two major concerns of farmers and processors, in Guyana and across the Community. The CPSO noted that measures to increase rice, corn, and soy production as key inputs to poultry feed, were among the interventions announced by the President.
The CPSO said that according to analytical work undertaken by it, the CARICOM poultry industry, including in Guyana, can potentially displace extra-regional imports of poultry meat into CARICOM markets valued at US$149.0 million per year.
“Successful import displacement will require urgent domestic policy reforms, inter alia, reducing the cost of capital and reliable access to feed at stable prices. The initiatives announced by President Ali are therefore concrete steps towards meeting these requirements”, it stated.
In addition to much needed domestic policy support, the most critical policy shift that remains is for CARICOM Member States to create or allow the emergence of a genuine single regional market for poultry meat that provides equal market access by all producers to all CARICOM Single Market and Economy markets.
“Relative comparisons of the market access for poultry meat imports into CARICOM Member States demonstrate wide variations in the Common External Tariff (CET) and market access. According to the CPSO’s work, such variations in the import market access among Member States, highlight the scope for the possible introduction of a CARICOM-wide Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) regime, underpinned by a harmonized CET, the removal of remaining Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs), adherence to the CARICOM Poultry Standard and a CARICOM Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary (SPS) regime”, it stated.
The statement said that according to initial work by the CPSO, under these conditions, if CARICOM Members introduced a TRQ regime for poultry meat, intra-regional imports could substantially displace imports from extra-regional sources.
The CPSO said that the announcement by Ali of interest rate reductions to poultry farmers and expansion in crop production as an adjunct to poultry feed, positions Guyana and other CARICOM producers to potentially become net exporters of poultry meat to CARICOM markets within the construct of a harmonized CARICOM single market for poultry meat. The CPSO said that it is instructive that Guyana and Belize already maintain low levels of poultry meat imports.
