STATE minister in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Investments, Michael Stern, is to visit Guyana next week to get a first-hand view of that country’s rice exporting capabilities.

The visit is likely to settle the issue of Guyana’s ability to fill Jamaica’s imported rice needs. However, the issue of whether Jamaica should be allowed by CARICOM to import duty-free rice from the United States is still unsettled.

Visiting Guyanese Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, told an informal press briefing at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston yesterday, that his government offered the invitation for a Jamaican team to visit Guyana to get a “hands-on feel” of the rice production situation there.

He said that it was agreed that Stern would make the trip, but he hoped that other local stakeholders in the rice business would join the junior minister to familiarise themselves with Guyana’s rice production and its potential for expansion.

Persaud said that Guyana saw Jamaica as a rice market that could continue to grow and wanted to share in that growing market.

He, however, said that this potential for increased rice exports to Jamaica could be jeopardised by Jamaica’s importation of subsidised rice from Louisiana in the United States without the Common Export Tarrif (CET) being applied.

“We believe that there is no need for Jamaica to source extra-regional rice. If there were difficulties in the trading arrangements, they should have first been brought to the attention of the government. So our objection remains and it is a principled one that is provided for under the Treaty of Chaguaramas protocol,” he said.

Persaud pointed out that Guyana has not yet received any formal request for a waiver of the CET on the rice the Jamaican government proposes to import from the United States.

He said that Guyana’s concern is, with US rice subsidised up to 62 per cent and if the CET is removed as an element of protection, it would make rice produced within the region “very uncompetitive”.

“We have no objection to rice from the US coming into Jamaica, but we have an objection to a waiver of the common external tariff for that rice,” he explained.