Brazil To Support Barbados In Sugar Crisis

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

26 May 2005

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim met Barbados’ Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Dame Billie Miller, last week and offered wide-ranging assistance.

Barbados, like a number of other Caribbean economies, is suffering from the end of EU subsidies for sugar production. The WTO recently supported the EU's plans to reduce sugar support, and the EU plans cuts in the sugar price of more than 30% this year, with worse to come in 2006.

Minister Miller conveyed Barbados’ appreciation for Brazil’s willingness to assist with the restructuring of the sugar industry and the opportunity that this could present for Barbados in the area of agriculture. The Minister also welcomed the invitation issued to her colleague Minister, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hon. Erskine Griffith, to lead a technical delegation to Brazil to discuss this matter further.

“We all understand the need for modernization of the Barbadian structure in this field and I think the technology that we have developed and the experience also that Brazil has developed in the area of the use of ethanol as fuel can be of great importance,” said Mr Amorim.

“We are convinced, for instance, that with the Kyoto Protocol the demand for alcohol as fuel will increase very much and we are quite prepared to share the knowledge that we have accumulated not only on a strictly technical sense but also in the sense of business.”

Ministers Miller and Amorim also pledged support for efforts to revive WTO Doha Round negotiations, viewing the forthcoming WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong as an opportunity to advance the concerns of developing countries, including the interests of small economies.

There was also an exchange of views on issues of bilateral interest in separate meetings held between Minister Amorim and the acting Prime Minister of Barbados, Hon. Mia Mottley, May 16 and 17. With a view to enhancing bilateral relations and expanding cooperation and collaboration in a number of areas, Minister Amorim visited both Barbados and Jamaica at the invitation of his counterpart Ministers. He was accompanied by Senior Officials of the Brazilian Government and private sector representatives.

Dame Billie indicated that officials from Barbados and Brazil have also begun negotiations on an Air Services Agreement to encourage the development of air transportation links between the two countries. In addition, finance and tax officials have also held informal consultations that they hope will lead to the conclusion of a double taxation treaty in the near future and the opening up of significant new business opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs.

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