CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) — The St Lucia government has backed down on a move to increase the purchase requirement of local chicken after increasing protest from the business community.

The new arrangement under which importers were required to increase their purchase of locally produced chicken from the current 25 to 40 per cent was due to take effect from Wednesday.

However a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries, Co-operatives and Rural Development announced a delay in the implementation of a planned 40 per cent local purchase requirement for the importation of poultry meat.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Darius Gabriel said the authorities have decided to delay by six weeks, the new quota system, which was scheduled to take effect on May 27.

The St Lucia Chamber of Commerce had earlier warned that the decision to arbitrarily impose an increase in the purchase quota without any communication with the business community was bound to result in a sharp increase in the price of imported chicken.

It said that besides local producers of chicken would come nowhere close to satisfying the local demand for the commodity. The private sector group also argued that because the price of local poultry products is higher than imported meat, importers were in effect subsidizing the local chicken with the imports.

In a letter to poultry importers, Gabriel said the Ministry was sensitive to calls for further consultation on the matter.

“The Ministry looks forward to constructive engagements with all concerned and a resolution that will satisfy all affected parties,” he said.