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Parallèlement, l’ancien président du complexe sucrier, M. Roy Barrett, a exprimé des doutes quant à l’avenir à long terme de certains pans de l’industrie sucrière jamaïcaine et déclaré que, même si un nouveau mémorandum était élaboré, le prix sera revu à la baisse et les mesures ne serviront qu’à gagner du temps.
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The Jamaican agriculture minister, Roger Clarke, has called on ‘farmers to increase their yields through greater efficiency’, thereby lowering costs and allowing full capacity utilisation. This he maintains is the only way to respond to EU sugar-sector reform. He further urged diversification into ‘by-products such as ethanol, bagasse for cogeneration and to increase rum production’. Meanwhile the Jamaican minister of finance and planning, Dr Omar, said that while ‘there is no open cheque book ... we are committed to ensuring that the Sugar Company of Jamaica not only survives but reaches the efficiency levels to deal with the challenges we face’. Meanwhile, former sugar-estate chairman Roy Barrett has expressed scepticism about the long-term future of certain sections of the Jamaican sugar industry, stating ‘even if they give us another moratorium, eventually the price will go down, so we will just be buying time’. With reference to production costs on the Trelawny estate he said ‘I don’t think that we can bring it to a productivity level that can make it competitive on the world market’. Representatives of cane farmer however highlighted how limited were the agricultural diversification options in the Trelawny area.
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