DDL products denied entry into T&T

May 15, 2024 News

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…company calls for export standards to be implemented across CARICOM

Kaieteur News – Approximately US$100,000 worth of packaged milk and US$40,000 of flavoured bottled water produced by Demerara Distillers Limited have been denied entry into Trinidad and Tobago.

Executive Chairman of DDL, Komal Samaroo called an urgent press conference on Tuesday where he ventilated his concerns regarding what he described as “extremely onerous and stringent processes” for the importation of animal and animal-based products into Trinidad and Tobago.

In March this year, DDL exported four 20-foot shipping containers to T&T based on an evaluation of the Trinidad Market by a Trinidadian business enterprise. The company said it has always utilised the services of a partner in the market who is knowledgeable of the regulations.  The DDL Chairman explained that while two containers of packaged milk products were denied entry and returned to Guyana, the bottled water products have been restricted from sale pending the completion of an “unconventionally exhaustive examination” of the products.

He said on May 13, DDL engaged with a team from the Ministry of Trade of Trinidad and Tobago to discuss the rejection of its milk exports. “We were advised of an extremely onerous and stringent process for the importation of Animal and Animal- based products based on provisions of Trinidad and Tobago’s Animal Disease and Importation Act 2020,” he said.

The DDL Chairman told reporters that his company adhered to the regulations as advised by their Trinidadian expert, however the company was unaware of the additional requirements. In fact, Samaroo posited, “DDL find these requirements contrary to the spirit of intra-regional trade especially since we are reliably informed that Guyana has no such reciprocal requirements for the importation of similar products from Trinidad and Tobago.”

DDL currently exports the same products to three other Caribbean states including Suriname, St. Kitts and Barbados and has not encountered such barriers to trade. The Chairman said that the Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), President Irfaan Ali was informed of the situation and was shocked and is committed to resolving the issue. To this end, Samaroo explained, “If you are going to accept as a norm, different set of rules and different standards then we can’t have free trade. It has to be on a common basis. The European Union, the North American Free Traders, all on common basis. You can’t have a set of rules that an exporter to your market has to go through these hurdles and then you have ready access to everybody else. It is wrong.” Kaieteur News asked the Samaroo whether he was calling for a standard to be set across CARICOM for the import and export of products among member states.  He responded,  “I am calling for whatever it takes to allow even access to each market.” When asked if this would be a suggestion to government, he said, “absolutely.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in a press release issued late Tuesday night said that it has, along with the Ministry of Agriculture, been made aware of the non-acceptance of dairy products produced by “one of the country’s largest producers of dairy products which was destined for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago”.

The Ministry reminded that under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) to which both Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana subscribe requires free movement of goods and services under the regional integration framework.

“The refusal of entry to the dairy products wholly produced in Guyana by CARICOM

member state is an affront to the spirit of Caribbean integration agenda and must not be

accepted,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Acknowledging that regional products must satisfy the necessary sanitary and phytosanitary rules, the technical regulations as well as any product specific rules of origin required to qualify the products for regional preferential treatment, the ministry said that “available information indicates that the dairy products from Guyana destined into Trinidad and Tobago were in full compliance with these requirements”.

Further, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that while some details about the transaction and what led to the incident are still being discussed, the Guyana Livestock Development Agency (GLDA) remains in close contact with its counterparts in Trinidad and Tobago, the exporter and the importer to resolve this matter within the shortest possible time.

“Guyana remains committed to ensuring that nationals who wish to exercise or take advantage of rights granted by the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and other regional protocol under the integration agenda, are not unduly restricted. Guyana has opened its market to regional producers, it is expected that market access for products from Guyana into any CARICOM country is guaranteed for full benefits of regional integration to be realized,” the press release said.

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• CARICOM, DDL, milk, standards, TRADE, Trinidad

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