Trinidad to amend law to remove honey importation restrictions – High Commissioner

Trinidad and Tobago’s legislature will at its next sitting discuss the law that restricts importation of honey into the country to make amendments, Conrad Enill, the High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago to Guyana said on Wednesday.

Guyana has long lobbied for the removal of barriers to enable its honey to pass through Trinidad’s ports and move to other Caribbean countries.

Trinidad and Tobago’s honey, bees and bee products are guided by the island’s age-old Food and Drug Act of 1960 and Beekeeping and Bee products Act of 1935. Only honey originating from the Windward and Leeward Islands can be transhipped there.

“The honey issue has been one that has been difficult to deal with for a number of reasons but quite recently the Trinidad and Tobago government through its Cabinet approved what was required and it is now before the Parliament for legislative change.

“Once that is in place, I believe that that will no longer be an issue,” Mr Enill told the News Room following a meeting between Trinidad and Guyana manufacturers.

The budget debates start this week, therefore, the issue will be tabled soon, he added.

He said that the country’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley has committed to amend or repeal the law that blocks transhipment for the benefit of the Caribbean Community.

Trinidad initially restricted the importation of honey from Grenada and other Caribbean countries over concerns of a potentially disastrous disease of honeybees, the American Foulbrood disease.

Grenada took the issue to Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in 2013 and the Council decided that Trinidad’s denial of market access was in violation of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, CARICOM’s central treaty.

Trinidad was directed to lift the prohibition on the import and transshipment of honey.