Barbados calls for regional support on rum dispute
Published:Tuesday | July 1, 2014 | 10:34 AM
Barbadian Trade, Industry and Commerce Minister, Donville Inniss, is criticising regional leaders for lack of support in the current trade issue with the United States over rum.
He has compared it to the banana struggle of the nineties.
Inniss says millions of dollars and thousands of jobs have been put at stake for CARICOM workers and rum producers as the US continues to place massive subsidies on rum made in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
He says this gives them a competitive edge over the product from the rest of the Caribbean when they enter the United States market.
However, Inniss says his government's efforts at forming a united CARICOM front to lobby for changes to the unfair trade condition has not yielded responses from other regional leaders.
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