| Alberta's sugar beet growers have won a five-year reprieve
from the threat of price-depressing subsidized or dumped sugar imports
that could harm their business.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal has ruled that anti-dumping
and countervail duties applied to subsidized and dumped American and
European Union sugar since 1995 should continue for at least another five
years.
Canadian sugar refiners and the beet growers had warned the
Ottawa-based CITT in autumn hearings that an end to the border duties
would result in a flood of cheap sugar imports.
"We are very happy with the result," Bruce Webster, manager
of Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, said Nov. 6 from Taber, Alta.
"It gives us a reprieve from political uncertainty about the price
of sugar. We had a very good weekend after hearing this."
The Toronto-based Canadian Sugar Institute, representing Canadian
refineries, said the CITT decision simply recognized the world situation.
American and European subsidies and protection for their sugar
industries encourages excess production and leaves countries like Canada
vulnerable.
"The tribunal's decision recognizes that the distortions created
by the U.S. and EU sugar programs continue unabated and are even worse
today (than five years ago)," sugar institute president Sandra
Marsden said in a statement issued after the judgment was released on Nov.
3.
"In the absence of the antidumping and countervail duties, Canada
is one of the only major developed country markets that is open to sugar
exports. This makes Canada a prime target for excess U.S. and EU
sugar."
During CITT hearings, Canada's sugar-using food manufacturers argued
that the border should be thrown open to give consumers the advantage of
cheaper sugar available in the world.
They portrayed the domestic refiners as a protected industry able to
gouge consumers with higher prices. And the jobs in the food manufacturing
business that would benefit from cheaper sugar supplies far outnumber the
jobs in the sugar beet industry and refining industry.
The CITT rejected the option of an open border.
"In the tribunal's opinion, the Canadian market is even more
attractive today for EU and U.S. exporters of refined sugar than at the
time of the original inquiry," said the judgment.
"Both subject sources now have larger exportable surpluses and
fewer alternative markets where these surpluses can be sold, and refining
margins in Canada are better today than they were during the period
covered by the original inquiry." |