Caribbean Sugar: Implications of European Connection
|
Code : ITF0001
|
Region : Europe |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 OR |
||
|
Introduction: The Caribbean region (Annexure I) with ten sugar exporting countries, was among the top 10 exporters in the world till the mid 1960s and had peak annual sugar production of about 1.4million tons in 1965.1Thirty years later, in 1995, the region’s production had dropped to 0.8 million tons. By 2002, unmanageable costs and massive losses in the sugar industry, year after year, had left the Caribbean with only six sugar-exporting countries – Jamaica, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and St.Kitts. “Sugar is as important to theCaribbean economies as rice toVietnamor oil to SaudiArabia.”2 For centuries, the sugar sector in the form of foreign exchange earnings had been the backbone of theCaribbean countries. But by 2002, the Caribbean sugar exports had dropped to $261million3 from$338 million4 in 1998-99, a natural outcome of the crisis being faced by the Caribbean sugar industry. By 2002, Cuba (known as the “Sugar Bowl of theWorld”), due to financial crunch following the cessation of aids from the erstwhile Soviet Union, had to shut down 70 of its 156 sugar mills.5 Jamaican sugar production dropped to a 50-year lowto 152,165 tons6 in 2002-2003 as a result of the closure of most of its sugar factories following severe financial crunch. Trinidad’s state owned sugar company, Caroni, laid off all its employees7 in 2003 after witnessing years of perennial losses. The Caribbean sugar industry, whose roots can be traced back to the European colonization of the Caribbean islands (early 17th century tomid 20th century) (Annexure II), had been confronted with formidable challenges. |
|
| For Case Books
Click Here >> For Case eBooks Click Here >> |
|
