SKNLP: Brown sugar price to rise by 40% in St Kitts and Nevis

St Kitts and Nevis: The government led by Harris announced in parliament on Thursday 18 February 2021 that the government has now applied a 40% tax on imported brown sugar, which will significantly increase costs for people, alleged St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) in its statement. This announcement follows the lawsuit with Belize last month. Belize had sued St Kitts and Nevis, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and CARICOM, claiming that these CARICOM member states import brown sugar from countries outside the internal market without imposing the 40% Common External Tariff (CET) in 2019 and 2020.

Unlike the propaganda that started in 2014, Belize claimed that Belize Sugar Industries Ltd. (BSI) and Santander Sugar lost sales to these countries in 2019 and 2020 due to this treaty violation. It was also accused that the CARICOM Secretariat could not succeed in getting the CET through St Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago, which facilitated trade by the two respondents in which they did not apply the CET.

The St Kitts and Nevis government has begun talks with Belize about a possible out-of-court settlement following the lawsuit's news. After purposeful negotiations led by the Office of the Attorney General (AG), in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Immigration and BSI, SKN and Belize reached an out-of-court settlement under conditions that satisfied Belize.

This out-of-court settlement is a significant victory for the Belize sugar industry, which is disadvantaged by importing sugar from non-CARICOM sources, including Guatemala, because this sugar displaces the regionally produced sugar from the CARICOM internal markets. The sugar industry is now guranteed that it will receive the trade policy support to which it is entitled within the Revised Treaty, including the application of the CET, and a renewed opportunity to fully enter the Saint Kitts-Nevis market.

The case continues in the Caribbean Court of Justice against the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and CARICOM.