Jamaican exports still stuck in sample rut
Trade expert rues opportunities that go abegging
Published:Monday | November 6, 2023 | 12:05 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
JAMAICA ENJOYS great demand for a wide range of fresh agricultural produce in major international markets, which translate into great export potential. However, the country has in recent times been unable to leverage this into any export earnings of significance, a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining technocrat disclosed on Thursday.
“We have found that while our imports are increasing significantly, and exponentially, our exports continue to trade at a flat line, at least for food exports. However, along with the arrangements that we do have at the multilateral plurilateral and regional levels we have significant export potential,” Shelleka Darby told the new Face of Food stakeholder engagement at the Terra Nova All Suite Hotel in St Andrew.
“We have potential for exporting more cereals, fruits, meats, vegetables, roots and tubers, as well as beverages and spices. When we conducted this analysis, we found that there were at least 149 additional tariff lines that Jamaica was not optimising in terms of our export picture,” Darby added.
Multilateral agreements are binding on all World Trade Organisation (WTO) members and must be ratified, together with the WTO agreement.
Plurilateral agreements are optional in character and only obligate those members which choose to ratify them.
Darby went on to point out that Jamaica has plurilateral arrangements with the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and CARICOM.
“Along with these arrangements we have specialised access to 53 countries. These arrangements, generally speaking, allow us to enter these markets at zero duty. With the CBI, we are able to export several of our agriculture commodities duty-free, similarly with the UK (United Kingdom) and for EPA (economic partnership arrangements),” the trade expert further explained.
“There are a lot of opportunities for Jamaican products and you’ve been hearing this for a very long time,” Darby admitted. “However, how we penetrate our markets is very important. How we understand market demand is also very important because that influences how we position, how we produce and how we package our products in the international space.”
WTO, CARICOM arrangements
This is against the background of Jamaica’s multilateral arrangement with the WTO, which means it enjoys specialised rates at which it can access 163 markets. However, that isn’t all of the opportunities that continue to go abegging, she pointed out.
“Moving into the CARICOM configuration, we also have a duty-free arrangement among ourselves as CARICOM and we also have additional arrangements with at least five other countries – Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela. So these preferences should allow our commodities to perform well in international markets. However, as we have found in several of our analyses, Jamaica’s trade performance for exports has not been on the upward trend in the past five years.”
This is despite the fact that our yams, coffee beans, sweet potatoes, kola nut (bizzy), dasheen, mangoes, breadfruit, turmeric, fresh bananas and hot peppers are commodities which are in great demand on the international market.”