Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter 
A TEAM of consultants employed by the European Union (EU) are in the island to help produce a national strategy to help Jamaica adapt to the EU's sugar price cuts. The sugar industry experts and development economists are one of several teams the EU is sending
to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar-producing countries.
The consultants arrived in the island on Monday and will remain for the next four weeks ahead of a final report to be delivered to government on December 9. Thereafter Jamaica has a 60-day deadline to submit a national action plan to the EU to compete for a share of the 40 million euros available to assist in the transformation of ACP sugar industries.
The EU is offering this as compensation for the termination of the 'Sugar Protocol', the 1975 agreement by which it guaranteed preferential prices for ACP sugar. The EU abandoned the protocol following a ruling against it by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and is to cut its price for ACP sugar by 39 per cent over three years beginning next July.
"The industry needs to know just how much change needs to be made and how that can be achieved. We must also consider the wider socio-economic impact of change in the industry," said Carlo Pettinato, the EU's Jamaica delegation head of trade, politics and information section.
While in Jamaica the team will be working from the Sugar Industry Authority's (SIA) office in Kingston from where team members will consult with industry stakeholders. "They are going to be considering areas such as increased competitiveness, diversification, divestment and alternative economic activity which the EU has indicated a willingness to support," said executive chairman of the SIA, Derrick Heaven.
The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) said it would be assisting the consultants and making available to them its recent study on the sugar industry's future. Government is reviewing the PIOJ study, with Prime Minister P.J. Patterson due to make a statement on the future of the sugar industry in October.
