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Sasenarine is dead wrong about the sugar industry

Apr 22, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
Sasenarine Singh’s letter in the Kaieteur News of April 19, 2011 reeks of opportunism. Singh was an established member of the PPP for a number of years. He remained in spite of the policies and decisions made by the party.
This former PPP member’s most deceitful statement, however, was that the PPP inherited a booming sugar industry from the PNC. This is a false statement, as any proper investigation into Guyana’s trade history would reveal. Guyana, a former British colony, benefited significantly from trade agreements made with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
This agreement meant that the European Union bought Guyana’s sugar at a substantially higher price than that of the standard world sugar price until this preferential trade agreement was brought before the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Consequently, the preferential trade agreement between Guyana and the European Union ended, and this impacted significantly on sugar exports.
The PPP did not inherit a booming sugar industry from the PNC. Neither was the PNC’s rice industry as stable. The Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) failed in its attempts to revitalize Guyana’s failing economy. By 1991, Guyana’s key export markets, rice, bauxite and sugar, had radically regressed. Sugar production went from 220,995 tonnes in 1987 to 129,987 tonnes in 1990, and rice production plummeted from 131,700 tonnes in 1987 to 94,000 tonnes in 1990.
In 1991, Guyana exported 157,000 tonnes of sugar. In 2009, Guyana exported 170,422 tonnes of sugar, in 2005 it was 231,700 tonnes, and in 2010, Guyana exported 147,308 tonnes of sugar. The total amount of rice exported in 1991 was 50,000 tonnes, compared to 237,071 tonnes in 2010. While the sugar industry no longer benefits from this preferential agreement; it is still striving to compete on the world market.
Sasenarine Singh, by virtue of what is said in his letter, has deliberately attempted to mislead the Guyanese public, as what he has written in his letter, in no way reflects the actual truth of Guyana’s sugar industry.
Nigel Green

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