The Editor, Sir:

A consistent observation that I have made over my career is that persons resort to personal attacks when they have run out of substance in their arguments. I see that The Gleaner editorial (Thursday, June 18) has 'blasted' me (this is how the press typically reports such events) for my views on recent trade-related events, labelling my opinions as glib, supercilious, having inappropriate tone, being overzealous, introducing red-herrings and generally being inaccurate and unfair. However when I scour the editorial, I struggled to detect any substantial counter arguments to my point of view.

So let's leave the personal attacks aside and stick to the issues at hand.

1. Tastee Limited's attempt to export patties into Trinidad ran into an 'overzealous public health inspector' who applied the country's phyto-sanitary standards to the letter. This is a normal issue that bedevils trade around the world and should be seen as just that.

Even the Trinidad business community faces periodic frustration at the hands of public health and customs officials and I am sure that the same is true for the Jamaican business community when dealing with some Jamaican officials. However, rather than report the matter as a bureaucratic misstep, the 'Patty quarrel' is being portrayed as a 'conspiracy by the Trinidad & Tobago business community' to deny Jamaica its just due within CARICOM.

My view is that such a portrayal is misleading and inflammatory and that grievances which arise, (and will always arise) within CARICOM (patties, rice, cement) should be dealt with by the organs of CARICOM (COTED, CCJ, etc.) and not in the manner in which they were pronounced upon by senior government ministers in Jamaica (with references to knives, goats and sheep).

2. I still hold to my view that an objective assessment of the options to offer Jamaican manufac-turers a more competitive price of electricity will demonstrate that coal-fired power stations (like China) are a far better option than LNG.

I am not seeking to undermine any right of national treatment for citizens of CARICOM, especially when the TCL Group relies on that right to operate within CARICOM. I also reiterate my view that while the price of electricity in Jamaica is higher than in Trinidad, there are many countries in the world that have higher electricity prices than Jamaica. Competitiveness is not only about cheap inputs and a review of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitive Index will demonstrate this quite adequately. The top five countries (with the cost of electricity in brackets) are 1. USA (9.3 US cents), 2. Switzerland (?) (sic) , 3. Denmark (42.9 US cents), 4. Sweden (6.6 US cents), and 5. Singapore (15.3 US cents). With appropriate re-engineering, Jamaica can bring its costs down to 10 US cents per kilowatt-hour.

I do agree with the editorial that 'we all must play by the rules lest it becomes dysfunctional', however operating around the Caribbean as I do, let me assure you that (to varying degrees) rules are broken by all member states and what we need is less rhetoric and more enforcement.

I am, etc.,

Dr ROLLIN BERTRAND

Group CEO

Carib Cement Company Ltd