Barbados to raise unfair trading practice before COTED

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Barbados says it will raise with the Caribbean Community Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) a situation involving the production of beers in the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development Minister, Donville Inniss, in an interview with the Advocate newspaper here, said that multinational corporations (MNCs) in the OECS were producing items and then benefiting from lower duties when those products enter Barbados. He said the beer industry in the sub region was benefitting from lower duties because of a CARICOM arrangement which gives special treatment to the OECS.