Empire’s Sugar
p. 178 · Read in the full issue
Exporters Still Protected
THE United Kingdom Government, although bent on ending the State-trading system, will pre serve the provisions under which Empire sugar exporters are given market and price stability in Britain.
This London statement was made on June 10, after the Queen had referred in the Speech from the Throne to proposed legislation con cerning the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.
Under the long-term agreement signed in December, 1951, the British Government agreed to buy sugar from export organisations in Australia, Fiji, the British West Indies, Mauritius and South Africa, and it was indicated that some other territories could join later.
The agreement was to run until 1958, but it has been extended at yearly intervals to run until 1962.
The Food Ministry is Britain’s sole sugar importer for domestic consumption, but the Conservative Government, whose declared policy is to end State trading in food, has determined to stop Food Ministry sugar-trading “as soon as practic able.”
IT was announced early in June that Brazil had joined Indonesia and Peru in remaining outside the International Sugar Agreement, to which most of the major sugar exporting and importing countries subscribe.
A London report on June 7 stated that Brazil’s continued absence from the international agreement might push refined sugar prices down towards the end of the year. At that time world market price was about 3.4 cents per lb, compared with about 3.2 cents in the first three months of the year.