Tastee Limited has for some time been embroiled in a trade battle involving Trinidad and Tobago, and not Juici Patties, as reported last Friday.

The twin-island state has been accused of using non-tariff barriers to block the importation of the meat products from Jamaica.

A Tastee staff member, who is not authorised to speak for the company, last week acknowledged, on condition of anonymity, the company's involvement in the impasse.

Government sources also confirmed the information.

But Tastee Chief Executive Officer Vincent Chang has been unavailable for comment, while his marketing and purchasing manger, Sharon Bailey, said through her office that the company had no official comment on the trade dispute.

Juici Patties is seeking to enter Trinidad, but is just now exploring the market.

Financial Controller Gareth Williams said while Juici Patties has an interest in exporting to Trinidad, it had to date made no effort to set up shop or sell its products there.

"We are interested in getting into Trinidad and are now in the process of being certified by the local veterinary authorities," Walker told Wednesday Business.

"We have made no formal application, we are not in any dispute and we have not raised any objections to our processing plants being inspected by anyone."

When contacted last week, chief veterinary officer in the agriculture ministry, Dr Osbil Watson, said he was on a site visit in Montego Bay and could not speak on the matter.

Inspection

It was not ascertained if the inspection was of Tastee's Montego Bay production facilities, from where, according to the company's website, it exports to Caribbean markets, including Antigua, Cayman Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Trinidad.

Watson has in the past referred questions on the matter to the investment, industry and commerce ministry. Karl Samuda, the minister, has been unavailable for comment and questions submitted to his office have not yet been answered.

But Prime Minister Bruce Golding, fresh from a special meeting of Caricom heads of government in Port-of-Spain, weighed in on the matter this week.

"We are going to insist that when we send our patties down there we don't want to hear that they are held up on the wharf because people need to come and inspect our processing facilities," Golding was quoted as saying by the Jamaican-based Caricom News Network.

"There is no country that has done more to observe and to comply with the provisions of the treaties than Jamaica. We place no restrictions on CARICOM goods coming to Jamaica. We are the ones that are having problems," said Golding, who was speaking to journalists in St James, on his stop at the Blue Hole Nature Park Labour Day project on Monday.

The issue of standards has been central to the use of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures to block or delay the entry of Jamaican meat and meat products in Trinidad.

Standards

On Monday, Golding defended the Jamaican standards authority. "We have standards. We have standards organisations. We can't fly over the world to inspect every little packing house everywhere and that is why we have international standards and specification that we adhere to. And, therefore, when we produce a certificate from the Bureau of Standards we expect it to be respected.

"It is really a means of frustrating trade. And that is not something that we can tolerate," Golding was quoted as saying.

He also pointed to the situation with Belize, where he said a punitive duty had been placed on exports of the Jamaican beer.

"We must remove those barriers," Golding declared.

The PM's comments follow word last week from his foreign trade minister, Ken Baugh, that Caricom trade problems were being resolved. The resolution of the patty situation involves common SPS standards being accepted within the regional bloc.

"We agreed a set of steps towards achieving common standards governing SPS and related measures, and we are confident the process will move forward," undersecretary for Trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Ambassador Wayne McCook, told Wednesday Business.

"We also secured agreement that trade and SPS officials of member states will sit down to work through the details of these issues."

huntley.medley@gleanerjm.com