Commonwealth Sugar Producers Offered Guaranteed Market

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27291, 18 January 1950, Page 5

Commonwealth Sugar Producers Offered Guaranteed Market

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright

Rec. 7 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 17. Britain has offered to pay Commonwealth sugar producers 12 per cent, more for their 1950 sugar crop than the price paid for the 1949 crop, the Food Ministry announced today. This was disclosed in a statement on the recent sugar talks.

The statement said Britain had offered a guaranteed market in the United Kingdom for 1,550,000 tons of British Commonwealth sugar from 1953 to 1957 at prices to be fixed each year.

Last week the West Indian delegation, which had been holding talks with the Ministry of Food, protested that Britain's proposals at the Empire sugar talks amounted to a restriction of colonial sugar exports, so that the United Kingdom could buy a greater proportion of foreign sugar. Today’s statement denied the West Indian allegations. The Food Ministry said: “ Figures show that exactly the reverse is the case. The British Government realises that its offer does not completely fulfil the desires of some producers. There are numerous conflicting interests which it has been impossible to reconcile to the satisfaction of all parties.”

The United Kingdom was under obligation to the United Nations to enter into negotiations for a new international sugar agreement, and therefore felt bound to keep part of the British market uncommitted. The Ministry maintained that the British offer represented a greater degree of security than the colonial producers ever had before. Replies were still awaited from the colonies on the offer, which had been accepted by Australia and South Africa, subject to some reservations.

Until 1952 Britain will take the British Commonwealth’s entire exportable surplus.