Much of sugar's ability to exercise monopoly derived from the fact that for over three centuries it was a highly favoured colonial produce enjoying protection and preference on the British market. This security encouraged uneconomic expansion, the growth of a fragile and dependent economy and a perennial precariousness derived from the vagaries of geopolitical considerations over which the region has had no control.

The current problem is that the world has changed in a variety of ways disadvantageous of primary producers of export commodities and dependant economies. UNCTAD recently admitted that commodities, particularly agricultural produce, face very tough market access conditions in rich countries, noting that the developed countries show a bias against products exported by developing countries. Oxfam has pleaded for the introduction of regulation into global commodity trading with market intervention to manage the supply mechanism if poverty and underdevelopment are to be seriously addressed in the developing states.

The World Trade Organization, established in 1995 with 145 members, is the global international organisation responsible for the new dispensation in trade between and among nations. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business in an internationally acceptable manner. But with the arrival of the WTO Agricultural Agreement, preferences are under attack once more. While the reforms apply with equal force to both developed and developing countries, they can on occasion be fashioned to devastate the totally dependent economies of the developing world.

The new thinking seeks to reform the current arrangements governing international trade, introduce more market oriented policies and improve the predictability and security of trade. Within the next two years, given its way, WTO intends to rid the international market of distortions in world trade. What is not so clear is whether the reforms contemplated will enhance competitiveness and ensure the survival of export commodities, particularly those primary products from the developing countries. Given the dependent and uncompetitive nature of our economies the developing countries are frequently forced to organise against the demise of their primary producing economies. Just a few years ago the regional banana industry subsided with a whimper. Sugar is now similarly threatened.

Over the years Guyana has become the leading sugar producer in the Caribbean, its share of the output having grown from around 20 per cent in 1990 to over 40 per cent in 2000. Efficiencies have improved to the extent that the overall labour force has been lowered from 28,000 to 18,000 and annual employee productivity has grown from under 6 to nearly 17 tonnes in 1999. Far reaching as are such improvements, the economy continued to enjoy the protection of one preferential regime or the other without which its very survival would have been threatened. The most recent preferential regime has been the 1975 Lome' Convention between the European Commission and the ACP group of countries. Through its Sugar Protocol, the European Commission undertook for an indefinite period to purchase and import, at guaranteed prices, specific quantities of cane sugar which originate in the ACP States. The Special Preferential Sugar Agreement, on the other hand, allows for additional imports below the sugar protocol price but well above the world market price. There have been four Lome' Agreements so far and without them the cane sugar economies of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries would slide further into fragile precariousness.

In the case of Guyana 80 per cent of our total sugar exports is to the EU and this represents some 20 per cent of Guyana's total GDP. The sugar industry employs directly or indirectly some 26,000 people who provide for about 150,000 household members. Sugar is the single largest foreign exchange earner accruing in 2001 alone some US$121M of which US$100M came via the EU trade.

However, the reality is that too many of the influential developed states view the current Lome' concessions as distortions. A few years ago the United States challenged Lome's concession to ACP banana producers. Currently, Brazil and Australia are challenging Lome's concessions to the rest of the ACP sugar producers. Within the ACP grouping it is agreed that this challenge of the EU sugar regime, poses a very severe threat to the livelihood of a substantial section of the workforce, in a situation and at a time, when viable economic alternatives are unavailable.

The answer it would seem lies in achieving still higher levels of efficiency in production. In the case of sugar the answer lies in even higher yields and lower production costs. Within recent times the industry has achieved remarkable improvements in these areas. Given this reality is it possible to achieve the desirable levels of yield and costs within the WTO framework and timeframe? Can we afford to finance the reforms that are necessary to achieve such goals? Is the Skeldon initiative which aims to upgrade processing capacity from 90 tons to 350 tons per hour comprehensive enough to save Guyana's sugar industry?