-President says matter being addressed
By Marcelle Thomas
Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) yesterday called on the government and CARICOM to ensure a level playing field for trade following Trinidad’s rejection of two containers of FDA-approved reconstituted milk the company exported and the placing of a flavoured-water shipment under an onerous import clearance process.
The value of the shipment of milk was pegged at around US$100,000.
“If you are going to accept, as a norm, a different set of rules and different standards, then we can’t have free trade. It has to be on a common basis. The European Union and the North American Free Trade are all on a common basis. You can’t have a set of rules that an exporter to your market got to go through these hurdles, and then you have ready access to everybody else. It is wrong,” DDL Chairman Komal Samaroo yesterday told a hurriedly-summoned press conference.
Samaroo said that the T&T authorities told his company that as part of its approval process, they would have to send inspectors here to check the facility under which the milk is packaged. He said that the company was in discussions about what other processes were needed.
President Irfaan Ali who is currently the Chairman of CARICOM, last evening told Stabroek News that he had received complaints yesterday from DDL and was actively addressing it. Further, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Hugh Todd, and Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha, have been charged with examining the issue.
“Since they [DDL] have brought it to my attention, I’ve asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and [Minister of] Agriculture to make contact with authorities in Trinidad and Tobago, to verify what is the issue, because as far as we are concerned, DDL is an international company, they have all international certification, and they have claimed they have met all international standards for the export of milk and flavoured water,” Ali stated.
Trinidad and Tobago’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Conrad Enill, told this newspaper when contacted yesterday, that a meeting will be held here this afternoon between his country’s Trade Minister and his Guyanese counterparts to discuss the issue.
The DDL Chairman disclosed that management of his company was “shocked” to learn of the rejection, stressing that it doesn’t augur well for trade within the region.
Detailing the circumstances, he said that in March of this year, his company exported four 20-foot shipping containers, two with milk and two with flavoured water to a Trinidadian business enterprise, in response to a demand for these products by Trinidadian consumers.
“Regrettably, the two containers of packaged milk products were denied entry and returned to Guyana, while the bottled water products have been restricted from sale pending the completion of an unconventionally exhaustive examination of these bottled water products,” Samaroo lamented.
“On May 13, DDL engaged with a team from the Ministry of Trade of Trinidad and Tobago to discuss the rejection of our milk exports. We were advised of an extremely onerous and stringent process for the importation of animal and animal-based products based on the provisions of Trinidad and Tobago’s Animal Disease and Importation Act 2020. DDL find these requirements contrary to the spirit of intra-regional trade especially since we are reliably informed that Guyana has no such reciprocal requirements for the importation of similar products from Trinidad and Tobago”, he added.
Virtual meeting
On Monday, DDL held a virtual meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Trade of T&T to understand the reason for the rejection of the milk exported to the country and the process to be followed to have the company’s products added to the list of approved imports.
DDL was advised of the following: “1) The Animal Disease and Importation Act 2020 of Trinidad and Tobago prohibits the import of animal and animal-based products into Trinidad and Tobago subject to stringent and onerous requirements which are not reciprocal for such products being imported into Guyana. 2) The company needs to send a formal request to the Ministry of Agriculture of Trinidad and Tobago stating the products the company is seeking to import into the country. 3) The Ministry will advise on the documents to be submitted which will be used to undertake a desk review and risk assessment of the company. 4) Based on the risk assessment, the Ministry of Agriculture of Trinidad and Tobago will determine whether a site visit is required.”
The advisory also stated, “Once that process is satisfactorily completed, a recommendation will be made to have Guyana products from DDL added to the list of approved importers into Trinidad and Tobago. The cost associated with this process must be carried by the country/company making the request.”
Samaroo pointed out that DDL has requested that the Government of Guyana take note of the developments and “seek to ensure that there is balance and equity in our trade relations with Trinidad and Tobago.”
“You cannot develop a common market with different sets of rules where you have ready access to one market and that market has restricted access to your market. The rules have got to be even and leveled so that everybody gets a fair chance, and right now we do not have a fair chance,” he bemoaned.
President Ali meanwhile assured that he has heard the complaint and is “in the process of officially raising it to Trinidad and Tobago.”
Ali remarked that the act doesn’t bode well for the region achieving its 25% import reduction by 2025.
“And of course, this is not in keeping with the goal of achieving 25 by 2025 and the stated goal of all CARICOM which is to remove all trade barriers.”
However, the President was quick to point out that the trade hurdles faced are not because of policymakers.
“Many, many, times, what you’ll find is that these decisions are driven by the bureaucracy and are not driven by policy. That is why we are raising it officially…”
Ali also noted the experience of many businesses is that trade progress is stymied due to the onerous systems in the respective countries.
While it is too soon to say if they will take legal routes, DDL said that it will be pursuing “all possible channels” to ensure that its products are in regional markets.
In 2021, DDL had said it would be importing milk powder for its pasteurized milk processing plant until Guyana has an “organized dairy sector.”
“We are not set up for local milk because there isn’t an organized dairy sector here in Guyana, so no, we will not be using local cow’s milk. We will import the reconstituted milk for that,” Samaroo had told Stabroek News .
“Well, until there is that organised dairy sector,” he added, when asked about possibility of switching in the future. By August of that year, the company announced it was looking at dairy farming.
For decades, various Guyanese agricultural products have endured severe difficulties entering the Trinidad market and this has been a frequent matter of discussion at Council for Trade and Economic Development meetings and bilaterally without much success.
