A truckload of bagged cement leaving the Caribbean Cement Company's Rockfort plant in Kingston in this May 2006 Gleaner photo. - File

The Jamaican government has still not received the green light for the extension of a waiver of the mandatory 15 per tax on cement imported from outside Caricom's 15-member trade bloc, two weeks after the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) considered the application and, according to Jamaica's industry minister, gave a provisional go-ahead.

Jamaica wants a one-year-extension on waivers approved for three years, with the current arrangement allowing importers 15 per cent of the market and Caribbean Cement Company Limited (CCCL) 85 per cent.

Approval

An approval was secured from COTED, subject to confirmation by Barbados and Trinidad, "that they are not in a position to supply all our requirements," Investment and Commerce Minister Karl Samuda was quoted by the regional news service, CMC, as saying,following the three-day meeting that ran from October 5-8 in Barbados.

But on Tuesday, Samuda huddled with ministry technocrats looking at the issue to determine how to proceed.

Complicating the issue for Jamaica is correspondence from Trinidad Cement Limited noting its concern that more Caricom states were seeking waivers, a move it sees as detrimental to its regional market.

Samuda said he would speak later on the issue, but there was confirmation from within the ministry that it was 'still in dialogue with CARICOM', while the foreign ministry declined comment.

An email request to the Georgetown, Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat for an update on the matter, was not answered up to press time.

Following the Barbados meeting Samuda was further quoted as saying that on the day COTED considered the application from Jamaica, the Caricom trade ministers sat for some 10 hours.

War of words

The government has been locked in a war of words with local producers, Caribbean Cement, subsidiary of TCL, since it emerged that the state would be seeking to keep the waiver, which has opened up to the market to partial competition some three years now.Alice Hyde, marketing manager at Caribbean Cement, while confirming that a letter of objection was sent to the COTED meeting objecting to the applications by other countries, she declined to name them.

"We have lived up to what we agreed to in relation to Jamaica and the agreement that we made with Jamaica, " Hyde told Wednesday Business on Tuesday.

"We stated our objection in writing to the other countries in the region, who have continuously been seeking waivers, as we are confident that we can supply the cement that the region requires," she said in apparent reference to the TCL's group capacity in the region.

TCL recently scored a legal victory over Guyana in the Caribbean Court of Justice which ruled that that country's suspension of the CET on cement imports contravened the process outlined in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which governs trade issues within CARICOM, and ordered the duty reinstated.

Guyana is yet to comply and the parties are still duking it out before the CCJ.

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com