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Because of several distractions yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to do the research I wanted to do on CARICOM’s barriers to Jamaican products (in support of the thread I started). I got up this morning with the intention of doing so, and lo and behold, to my immense surprise it turned out to be the topic of today’s Sunday Gleaner editorial.
This editorial, hopefully, will illustrate what posters Comment, Assasin and Historian were saying yesterday.
What the PM must tell Caricom
Published: Sunday | May 24, 2009
In the mid-1980s, Jamaica and Canada nearly came to blows, figuratively that is, over patties, or more specifically, when a patty is, or is not, a patty.
According to the Canadians, a Jamaican patty, a light baked crust with a meat-filled centre, was really a pie. So, Jamaicans in Canada who made a business of baking and selling the iconic Jamaican patty could not call it such, they were told. A pie, perhaps!
The matter was settled in a quietly jovial "summit" between the then Jamaican prime minister, Edward Seaga and his Canadian counterpart, Brian Mulroney, in the margins of a Canada-Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit in Kingston - the same one at which Mr Mulroney unveiled his plan for the CaribCan trade agreement. Nearly a quarter of a century on, shingles abound across Canada of bakeries producing and selling Jamaican patties.
Unlike that 1986 incident, which was treated as a light-hearted side issue that generated a few laughs, the matter confronting Jamaica's current prime minister and Mr Seaga's immediate successor as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is deadly serious. And we hope that Prime Minister Bruce Golding will declare it pellucidly so to his Caricom counterparts, especially Trinidad and Tobago's Patrick Manning, when they meet in Port-of-Spain today.
As this newspaper noted in this space and elsewhere in last Friday's edition, Jamaican patty producers have found it difficult both to export their products and, or, establish operations in Trinidad and Tobago. But the problem encountered by the patty is really merely a metaphor for the larger barriers being confronted by Jamaican exports generally in Caricom markets.
Oversight arrangements
Jamaican meats, for instance, have met resistance in Trinidad and Tobago as well as in the Organisation of East Caribbean States, over spurious concerns about sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations in Jamaica, which has the best oversight arrangements in the region. Belize uses non-tariff barriers to block the import of Jamaican beer and spirits. At one time, the problem was getting soft drinks and plastic products into Barbados.
Notwithstanding the report of progress on these matters at the recent meeting of Caricom's Council on Trade and Economic Development, we insist that it is relevant for Mr Golding to force Jamaica's concerns at today's caucus of leaders.
The discussions in Port-of-Spain are primarily about identifying a new trade negotiator for the community and reviewing the parameters for negotiating a pact to succeed CaribCan. The leaders will also look at how the region's new trade agreement with the European Union is working.
But it seems to us that all of that will grow irrelevant if Caricom cannot adhere to the spirit and the law of its internal trading rules, which would make a mockery of its intent to transform into a single market and economy - a project, which makes intellectual and economic sense.
Pertinent facts
Mr Golding, as we have noted before, must take to Port-of-Spain a few pertinent facts, including the one that last year Jamaica imported more than US$1.68 billion from Caricom and exported a mere US$66 million. Trinidad and Tobago is the biggest beneficiary of Jamaica playing by the rules.
The PM, however, must warn Mr Manning and the others that, in the absence of traction, Kingston is ready to get tough.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
This editorial, hopefully, will illustrate what posters Comment, Assasin and Historian were saying yesterday.
What the PM must tell Caricom
Published: Sunday | May 24, 2009
In the mid-1980s, Jamaica and Canada nearly came to blows, figuratively that is, over patties, or more specifically, when a patty is, or is not, a patty.
According to the Canadians, a Jamaican patty, a light baked crust with a meat-filled centre, was really a pie. So, Jamaicans in Canada who made a business of baking and selling the iconic Jamaican patty could not call it such, they were told. A pie, perhaps!
The matter was settled in a quietly jovial "summit" between the then Jamaican prime minister, Edward Seaga and his Canadian counterpart, Brian Mulroney, in the margins of a Canada-Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit in Kingston - the same one at which Mr Mulroney unveiled his plan for the CaribCan trade agreement. Nearly a quarter of a century on, shingles abound across Canada of bakeries producing and selling Jamaican patties.
Unlike that 1986 incident, which was treated as a light-hearted side issue that generated a few laughs, the matter confronting Jamaica's current prime minister and Mr Seaga's immediate successor as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is deadly serious. And we hope that Prime Minister Bruce Golding will declare it pellucidly so to his Caricom counterparts, especially Trinidad and Tobago's Patrick Manning, when they meet in Port-of-Spain today.
As this newspaper noted in this space and elsewhere in last Friday's edition, Jamaican patty producers have found it difficult both to export their products and, or, establish operations in Trinidad and Tobago. But the problem encountered by the patty is really merely a metaphor for the larger barriers being confronted by Jamaican exports generally in Caricom markets.
Oversight arrangements
Jamaican meats, for instance, have met resistance in Trinidad and Tobago as well as in the Organisation of East Caribbean States, over spurious concerns about sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations in Jamaica, which has the best oversight arrangements in the region. Belize uses non-tariff barriers to block the import of Jamaican beer and spirits. At one time, the problem was getting soft drinks and plastic products into Barbados.
Notwithstanding the report of progress on these matters at the recent meeting of Caricom's Council on Trade and Economic Development, we insist that it is relevant for Mr Golding to force Jamaica's concerns at today's caucus of leaders.
The discussions in Port-of-Spain are primarily about identifying a new trade negotiator for the community and reviewing the parameters for negotiating a pact to succeed CaribCan. The leaders will also look at how the region's new trade agreement with the European Union is working.
But it seems to us that all of that will grow irrelevant if Caricom cannot adhere to the spirit and the law of its internal trading rules, which would make a mockery of its intent to transform into a single market and economy - a project, which makes intellectual and economic sense.
Pertinent facts
Mr Golding, as we have noted before, must take to Port-of-Spain a few pertinent facts, including the one that last year Jamaica imported more than US$1.68 billion from Caricom and exported a mere US$66 million. Trinidad and Tobago is the biggest beneficiary of Jamaica playing by the rules.
The PM, however, must warn Mr Manning and the others that, in the absence of traction, Kingston is ready to get tough.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
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Comment