Marguerite Desir, the Chief Operating Officer for Harris Paints Group of Companies and representative for the Caricom Paint Manufacturers, has clarified the objective of the paint manufacturers’ letter to regional governments, including Antigua and Barbuda.
In a September 20th letter to the Trade Minister, EP Chet Greene, the group argued regional market for paints have suffered greatly from “major incursions on account of substantial under-pricing of paints from the United States.
However, Desir speaking to Observer, emphasised that they are not against US paints entering the region. In fact, they welcome worldwide trade in line with the WTO ruling.
“With the WTO ruling, we are open to trade worldwide, what we are saying is let it be fair, and let them pay the required duties because we are small islands and we have to do things differently to protect the industry and protect employment,” she said.
Desir highlighted past instances of dumping by the US, a practice where manufacturers lower the price of an item entering a foreign market to less than the price paid by domestic consumers.
“There were some issues with unfair pricing which includes the other islands and we saw even prior to Covid that paint was being dumped all over the region and then after a while, when the businesses run out [of the paint], they ramp up the prices,” she argued.
A meeting with paint producers and sellers, such as Harris Paints, Paint Plus and Sherwin Williams Paint, was held yesterday with Permanent Secretary of Trade, Ambassador Dr Clarence Henry for their opinion on the matter.
Desir added that the study done by Caricom Private Sector Organization (CPSO) showed all the evidence of predatory pricing.
“So, all we are asking for is to amend the duties so they wouldn’t be able to dump the products in, so then you have unfair competition and pricing.
“But that issue is not an Antiguan issue—in Antigua, the duty is already at the rate; we are asking for Antigua to come together with other Caribbean islands for the countries that don’t have it like Barbados, Jamaica, etc,” she said.