Livingstone Morrison, president and CEO of the Sugar Company of Jamaica.
Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) may delay its reduction in preferential prices for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar producers until 2010/11, said Livingstone Morrison, president and chief executive officer of the government-owned Sugar Company of Jamaica.
He said that since ACP countries persuaded the EU to delay a 25 per cent reduction in prices from July 1 this year, he remained optimistic about ongoing negotiations. However, he conceded a worst-case scenario could see a price reduction of 37-38 per cent.
"Considering that we had an indefinite contract with the EU, I think they have at least a moral obligation to provide a lengthy period of adjustment," Mr. Morrison told The Gleaner after his address to the Spanish Town Rotary Club at the Kingston Hilton Hotel on Tuesday night.
The EU had initially proposed a 37 per cent reduction over a three-year period comprising a 20 per cent cut on July 1 and a 17 per cent over the next two years.
However, Mr. Morrison said the price reduction could benefit the Jamaican sugar industry by forcing it to further adapt to international market conditions. "We need to become a multi-product industry and we are behind other countries in this respect. The Jamaican sugar business is 400-years-old and it needs adaptation."
He said there were over 100 potential by-products from nail polish to ethanol and co-generation (energy generation from industrial waste), that could be produced.
Besides the ACP rate adjustment Mr. Morrison argues that an even bigger threat to the industry, was the crime rate around the Bernard Lodge sugar refinery, in Spanish Town, one of five owned by the Sugar Company of Jamaica.
"Over the past 10 days more than 20 persons have been murdered in the communities adjoining the estate. There are continuous reports of workers being robbed, and terrorised."
He said the 24-hour operation of the plant was being threatened by absenteeism as workers were afraid to travel to begin work at 5:00 a.m. in the cane fields. He added that night harvesting had been cancelled as a result.
