A tariff on United States sugar will continue for another five years following a Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruling.
The tribunal did not continue a duty on European Union sugar. Canada is filing an appeal against the EU ruling in federal court, said Sandra Marsden of the Canadian Sugar Institute.
The duty was imposed in 1995 following the dumping of subsidized product from the U.S. and Europe.
The European duty on dumping was about 78 percent of the export price while the tariff against shipping subsidized product was about $300 per tonne. The U.S. pays only the dumping charge.
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The duty applies to imports of sugar, refined from sugar cane or sugar beets in granulated, liquid and powdered form, to prevent unfair competition and injury to the Canadian sugar industry.
“Sugar is one of the most highly protected commodities in the world,” said Marsden. Canada is one of the few not to subsidize its sugar industry.
This decision helps preserve what is left of the Canadian industry, said Nabi Chaudhary, senior crops economist with Alberta Agriculture, who appeared as a witness to support sugar beet growers.
“We’re trying to save this industry from going under,” he said.
Canada used to have sugar beet factories in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. The only one processing sugar beets is at Taber, supplied by about 600 Alberta sugar beet producers. This is the only domestic source of sugar in Canada, with other plants in Canada handling cane sugar.
The sugar institute website reports about 90 percent of Canada’s refined sugar is produced from raw cane sugar, imported from South America, Central America and Australia. As of 2008, more than 1.2 million tonnes of sugar were imported.
Canada has no tariffs on imports of raw sugar from developing economies like Colombia and has a $30.86 per tonne tariff on refined sugar.
For the 2008-09 crop year, Alberta refined 56,400 tonnes of sugar. About 85 percent of refined sugar is used by food manufacturers and food service outlets and the rest is directed to retail customers.
Statistics Canada data for refined sugar indicates that per capita use decreased between 1997 and 2007 to 32.1 kilograms per person per year from 37.1.
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2005 1,164.51
2006 1,171.252007 1,235.892008 1,282.792009932.9158.3045.4740.5136.55
36.95
