Heaven invited by Europe to make the case for sugar
Ambassador Derrick Heaven, executive chairman of the Sugar Industry Authority, will address an upcoming joint sugar hearing in Brussels, which local interests hope will boost lobbying efforts for concessions from Europe for Jamaica’s, and the region’s, sugar industry.
The session on ‘The Reform of the EU’s Common Market Organisation for Sugar’ has been organised by the Committee on Development of the European Parliament for November 30.
Ambassador Heaven is one of only four invitees for this special hearing designed to further inform EU parliamentarians on the potential damage to European and
African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) group sugar industries which could be caused by proposed changes to the present pricing regime. The other presenters will be from Brazil, Germany and Finland.
Sugar industry leaders in Jamaica say they believe strongly that this occasion, which will also have a question and answer component, represents a golden opportunity to reiterate the case for a significant review of the proposed changes.
Since the details of proposed reforms were leaked to the media and to sugar circles, the Jamaican government – through the Ministry of Agriculture and its agencies, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade – has joined other affected countries in the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific, in mounting an aggressive lobby against the proposal to cut the price paid for sugar exported to Europe, whose plan is to cut the price by 37 per cent in the immediate years ahead.
Between October 10 and 15, there was a ministerial lobbying mission which had meetings in London, Warsaw, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Brussels and Lisbon.
On this mission, Jamaica’s agriculture minister Roger Clarke was joined by his counterparts from Mauritius and Belize.
In addition, there were senior officials from the Eastern Caribbean, Fiji Islands, and Guyana.
Ambassador Heaven, a former High Commissioner to London, has been himself engaged in an intense round of discussions with European parliamentarians, and it is believed that this invitation to address the joint committees is a direct result of this initiative.
