Soar days ahead for sugar

Fiji’s hopes for a bigger and better sugar market were dashed within one disastrous week in October. The International Sugar Conference in Geneva failed to draw up a new international agreement to regulate the world free sugar market from next January.

Only four days previously it had been a different story. The leader of Fiji’s delegation to the talks, Minister without Portfolio Ratu David Toganivalu, told the country to count on a quota boost from 155,000 tons a year to 180,000.

“But although disappointed, we are not discouraged,” the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Doug Brown, said after he heard of the conference breakdown.

“It makes us more determined to maximise efforts to perform even better than in the past as far as sugar production is concerned. We will keep and even improve our good name as a reliable producer of top quality sugar.”' Sugar officials hope for a chance to salvage the talks, but so far they have broken down completely.

The Fiji Sugar Corporation’s general manager, Mr Gwynfor Bowen- Jones, admitted he was disappointed with the breakdown, but he wanted to wait for the return of Fiji’s sugar talks team before commenting further.

Banking on an increased market, Fiji was eagerly making plans to expand the industry by bringing under cane an extra 15,000 acres adding another 1,000 cane farmers to the present force of 15,000.

Representatives of Australia’s sugar industry said that, in the short term at least, the absence of an ISA seemed unlikely to have any adverse effects on Australia’s industry.

Looking further ahead, however, the main area of concern was that some countries, encouraged by the high prices and the absence of regulations of exports to the free market as the ISA ends on January 1, might pursue policies of irresponsible production.

Meanwhile, Fiji still has her customers and commitments, in spite of international hassles. The Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, has discussed Commonwealth sugar agreements at European Economic Community talks in Brussels.