Way cleared for regional trade in poultry, poultry products
As the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) continues to move steadily towards increasing intra-regional and food security, nine poultry processing plants in the Region have been approved to trade among Member States.
The approval came on Friday 6 October, at the 71st Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Agriculture at the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana.
The poultry plants from six CARICOM Member States – Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago – were cleared to sell poultry products intra-regionally after they were assessed by Regional Risk Assessments Teams and met the sanitary requirements to enter the CARICOM Market. Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) coordinated the assessments and the process of review and finalisation by the CARICOM Committee of Chief Veterinary Officers.
Ministers lauded this development and urged Member States to adopt the Specifications for Poultry and Poultry Products which were developed by the Caribbean Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) and approved by the COTED in 2013.
In addition, the COTED has resolved the matter of duck meat trade between Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname. Trinidad and Tobago will, within 30 days, approve Suriname as one of the countries that has met the SPS requirements for exporting duck meat to the twin-island Member State.
See more photos of the Meeting here