Barbados Agricultural Society’s Chief Executive Officer, James Paul, insists imports into this country must be controlled.
Regulatory controls must be implemented on imports into this country if it is to stop bleeding foreign exchange.
Head of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul, made this clear yesterday as he revealed to the media that some 900 cases of coconut water from Guyana had been imported into the island by a private sector entity to be sold on the local market.
Saying this could spell doom for the country’s now developing coconut water industry, while pointing out several fledgling industries that had run into the ground due to cheaper imports, an adamant Paul insisted that imports must be regularised.
“It is time now that Government and the Central Bank look at a system where persons requesting foreign exchange are subject to some type of scrutiny in terms of the type of products they are importing into this country. There is no reason why we should be importing coconut water. There should be no reason why we are importing eggs, especially when we have the same commodities here. We bring in things like tamarinds, why are we importing tamarinds? These are the fundamental issues that we have in this country!” Paul chided.
“People in the private sector and economists in this country, who claim to have so much knowledge about these things side-step these issues because the truth is the ability to deal with these problems is a very practical thing… If we continue doing these things that are causing the leakage of foreign exchange into this country and not deal with the person actually causing the leakage that is where the issue lies,” he stated, going as far as to suggest that the time had come for a quota for car imports.
Outlining that the agricultural sector would not only save foreign exchange, but earn it, Paul urged investors to get involved in ensuring that this coconut industry was further developed, as it would lead to more employment opportunities for Barbadians.
Regarding the coconut water imports, the agriculturalist urged consumers to avoid making such a purchase if these bottles were allowed to go on supermarket shelves, and instead to continue to patronise their local vendors.
“I would warn Barbadians to be very careful about purchasing this imported coconut water because it does not have a very long shelf life and the other thing is what additives are going into this water and we already have a huge problem in this country when it comes to lifestyle diseases,” he added. (JMB)