Untitled Document McLachlan said that the company's trade inroads within the Caribbean continue to be advance thanks to the working relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Trade:
Mac McLachlan, VP, International Relations, ASR BSI
"We've had a wonderful relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Trade for many years now as you know one of our most lucrative and best markets for our sugar is the CARICOM market we enjoy a preference there because the sugar is made in the CARICOM and about three or four years now with the past government we went to court with Trinidad to ensure that brown sugar receives those preferences, we won the case and ever since then we've gone from exporting to CARICOM around 1500 tons of sugar to around twenty thousand tons and of course Santander can also benefit from that preference in the market. So really the visit was very timely and helpful. I was with the minister in a CoTed trade meeting in November. He expressed an interest in seeing the mill along with his trade team who we rely on heavily to ensure that the market gives us the preferences that we are due under the treaty. And so we were able to have a great tour of the mill to see all the things we have been doing and especially the packaging lines the warehousing and in particular the retail packaging that we have no invested 2 million Belize dollars in a packaging line to be able to have a really high quality domino sugar packaging for sale into the Caribbean and we hope at some point that prices are that are liberated that we will be able to sell that sugar into Belize as well."
