Posted: Tuesday, October 15, 2024. 9:42 pm CST.
By Aaron Humes: Discussions continue over lifting the controlled price for brown and white sugar even as shortages continue to be reported.
Minister of Agriculture Jose Mai has said he is on board with the idea of BSI/ASR selling packaged sugar, provided they can justify their costs. Of course, that would have an increased cost, but it would de-incentivize smugglers from taking the sugar across the border, which would mean more bags would be on Belizean shelves.
And Prime Minister John Briceno told reporters that there is little Government can do to stop smugglers without proof especially if the prices are kept artificially low: “Well, the reality is that our sugar has been smuggled into Mexico and Guatemala, and no matter what we do, it’s going to continue if we can kind of remove the incentive. Really, we are selling our sugar way, way too low. One of the, again, the ideas that we’ve been talking about is we will not allow the price to go up a lot. We’re considering and raising just a bit so we could disincentivize the people that are taking this on contraband.”
Efforts at enforcement have fallen short, the P.M. conceded: “You could full a container of sugar, and you could get to the border, and they can’t do nothing. It’s when you cross the border. So we have stopped trucks going down south full of sugar, but you can’t do them nothing. They are in country. So I use that to say it’s very difficult and when you cross the border, you can’t go and arrest them on the other side. So that’s the challenge. One of the ideas that, again, Cabinet has said is to keep it bagged, but also then to remove the control in packaging.”
The authorities continue to look into the problem, the P.M. continued: “What used to be called marketing board, they are looking at the possibility of starting to package it, and so off to be able to offsell, and that then will be able to raise the price a little bit because it’s going to be packaged. But we can’t leave things as they are because we’re going to continue running out of sugar…”
BSI has said it is starting to sell directly to supermarkets and other vendors who ask but that it cannot continue doing so efficiently because of safety concerns.
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The post Prime Minister says sugar prices may be raise to ‘dis-incentivize’ short sellers and smugglers appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
Posted: Tuesday, October 15, 2024. 9:42 pm CST. By Aaron Humes: Discussions continue over lifting the controlled price for brown and white sugar even as shortages
The post Prime Minister says sugar prices may be raise to ‘dis-incentivize’ short sellers and smugglers appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
