Tomado de:
By: Kiana
Wilburg
The spirit of
brotherhood which exists between Guyana and Venezuela may perhaps be running
thin. The Spanish-speaking territory is making serious moves to wean itself off
of Guyanese rice.
Finance
Minister, Winston Jordan, said that during his recent visit to Venezuela, he
was told in no uncertain terms that the South American neighbour would no
longer be interested in renewing the oil for rice barter under the PetroCaribe
deal which will come to an end on November 16, next.
He said that
Guyana was told to find new markets for its rice.
Venezuela’s
decision regarding the rice deal comes at a time where it is claiming
sovereignty over Guyana’s waters since the significant oil find by American oil
giant, Exxon Mobil just 100 miles off of the Stabroek Block.
The issue is
one which has seen the Government displaying complete resistance to Venezuela’s
declaration and even its rhetoric over the past few weeks.
Yesterday,
Jordan said that Venezuela claimed it had hinted to the past administration as
well as to top officials in the Guyana Rice and Development Board that Guyana
needs to start looking at other markets.
Based on
records over the past two to three years, Jordan said that it would show that
Venezuela was scaling back on the volume of rice it was taking from Guyana.
Venezuela
finds new markets
The oil-rich
country has however, entered into new rice deals with rice-producing giants
like Uruguay. The South American country has agreed to provide Venezuela with
120,000 tonnes of rice by the end of this year. This deal was struck so that
Uruguay can clear its US$400M debt it accumulated from taking Venezuela’s oil
at concessionary prices.
According to
El Pais, a leading newspaper in Colombia, this is the first time that the
Government of Uruguay has participated in a rice export agreement which will be
signed officially on July 17.
Finance
Minister Jordan said that Venezuela claims that its decision to not renew the
rice deal after November is mainly because it has secured rice shipments from
Suriname and has enough local production to satisfy its domestic demand.
Venezuela and
Guyana –new ventures
But Venezuela
is not cutting Guyana off entirely. Jordan said that the Spanish-speaking
country indicated “interest” in buying Guyana’s rice next year, but a very
modest amount to support its buffer stocks.
He said that
Venezuela even communicated “interest” on entering into a joint venture
agreement with Guyana to pursue rice markets together.
He said that
Venezuela is proposing to establish an office within its borders and Guyana
would take its shipment to its port. The rice would then be shipped from there
to countries with which Venezuela has good relations, such as Iran, a huge
consumer of rice.
Jordan said
that while both initiatives are far from being set in stone, Venezuela has
agreed to receive a high level team from Guyana to discuss both options. Though
Venezuela was successful in striking more beneficial rice agreements with other
countries, including one of Guyana’s CARICOM sisters, it has expressed
“interest” in other products Guyana may have to offer.
Clearing oil
debts
With the rice
for oil agreement set to come to an end later this year, the Finance Minister said
that he is not too worried about writing off the debt incurred.
He said,
“Under the PetroCaribe deal, Guyana gets oil from Venezuela at very
concessionary prices. We receive the oil, pay for half upfront and the other
part is paid off within several years. But at the same time we are accumulating
debt. So, to write off the debt, rice was agreed to be used under the
PetroCaribe agreement…”
The Finance
Minister continued, “Had Guyana not been bartering with rice, our debt would
have been between US$500 to US$700m. Now it stands at US$190M. By the time the
agreement is ended in November, that debt would decrease but after November it
would increase again because we will continue to benefit from the oil at
concessionary prices but we won’t have rice to write it off the debt like we
used to.”
With this new
development, Jordan said that it becomes even more imperative for Government to
redouble its efforts to locate new markets for Guyana’s rice as quickly as
possible.
Economic time
bomb
It was only
June 14, last, that Presidential Advisor on Sustainable Development, Dr. Clive
Thomas, predicted that like the ailing sugar industry, the booming rice
industry could be sitting on another economic time bomb.
He had said
that certain factors affecting the rice sector leave it poised for a
dispiriting future.
Dr. Thomas
said, “The ticking time-bomb that rice is perched” on is due to three factors.
He listed these to be explosive growth of output, increasing difficulty in
finding lucrative markets and the level of unit production costs.
The economist
noted that rice output has grown explosively in the 2010s; rising by more than
100,000 tonnes annually since 2012. He said that much of this expansion has
been fuelled by Government support to both supply (production) and demand
(finding lucrative markets).
He had said,
“As is common knowledge, the Venezuelan market is at great risk generating a
potential demand/ supply market imbalance. This imbalance risks a collapse of
rice and paddy prices later this year, thereby impairing livelihoods, in
contrast to what prevailed in the first half of the 2010s.”
The economist
opined that should Guyana fail to deal with the aforementioned factors with
great haste, then the sustainability of the rice industry could prove to give
the new government, a similar kind of hell it is facing in trying to nurse the
ailing sugar industry back to good health.
Finance
Minister, Winston Jordan, said that he agrees implicitly with the comments of
the Presidential Advisor noting that farmers for some time have been responding
to Venezuela’s “concessionary price” and will have to adjust to suit new times
ahead.
“The
Venezuelan market is one that you wouldn’t normally find out there. The country
was taking practically 30 to 35 percent of our rice exports. Our rice farmers
will have to prepare themselves to operate in a regular market very soon. What
they were getting was what is called an artificial market price from Venezuela,
a price that is concessionary, a price that in reality, it would be extremely
hard to get on the world market.
“And what you
find is that a lot of rice farmers may have taken loans and ploughed almost all
their resources into the rice sector because of this agreement they were
benefitting from. That will now have to change. They will have to change their
production to meet the world market quota,” the Finance Minister explained.
2005 La
Guayana Esequiba – Zona en Reclamación. Instituto Geográfico Simón Bolívar Primera Edición
Nota del
editor del blog:
Al referenciarse a la República Cooperativa de
Guyana se deben de tener en cuenta los 159.500Km2, de territorios ubicados al
oeste del río Esequibo conocidos con el nombre de Guayana Esequiba o Zona en
Reclamación sujetos al Acuerdo de Ginebra del 17 de febrero de 1966.
Territorios estos sobre los cuales el Gobierno
Venezolano en representación de la Nación venezolana se reservo sus derechos
sobre los territorios de la Guayana Esequiba en su nota del 26 de mayo de 1966
al reconocerse al nuevo Estado de Guyana:
“...por lo tanto, Venezuela reconoce como
territorio del nuevo Estado, el que se sitúa al este de la margen derecha del
río Esequibo y reitera ante la comunidad internacional, que se reserva
expresamente sus derechos de soberanía territorial sobre la zona que se
encuentra en la margen izquierda del precitado río; en consecuencia, el
territorio de la Guayana Esequiba sobre el cual Venezuela se reserva
expresamente sus derechos soberanos, limita al Este con el nuevo Estado de
Guyana, a través de la línea del río Esequibo, tomando éste desde su nacimiento
hasta su desembocadura en el Océano Atlántico...”
LA
GUAYANA ESEQUIBA
http://laguayanaesequiba.blogspot.com/2008/01/la-guayana-esequiba.html
Terminología sobre cómo referenciar la
Zona en Reclamación-Guayana Esequiba.
Mapa que señala el
Espacio de Soberanía Marítima Venezolana que se reserva, como Mar Territorial mediante el Decreto Presidencial No 1152 del 09
de Julio de 1968
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