KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The Jamaica government says it will continue to develop the biofuels industry so as to boost exports under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI).
Jamaica, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands are the only countries that have exported ethanol under the CBI.
According to a March 2008 Congressional Research Service report, Jamaica and Costa Rica were the two largest exporters of fuel ethanol to the United States between 1999 and 2003.
Energy and Mining Minister James Robertson said that as part of the plans to boost production, Jamaica last year accepted an invitation to join the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United States of America and Brazil for increased cooperation on biofuels.
Jamaica joins Guatemala, Honduras, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal that have agreed to cooperate with the US and Brazil to develop their biofuels industry and reduce dependence on imported fuels.
Ethanol is an alternative to gasoline touted as producing lower greenhouse gas emissions. Its increased use is expected to play a key role in reducing the contribution of carbon monoxide, from motor vehicles, to global climate change.
The CBI is a trade agreement between the US and Caribbean and Central American countries that was originally launched in 1983, under the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), and expanded significantly expanded in 2000 under the US-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA).
The agreement grants participating countries duty-free access for some products to the US market, and exempts them from the 54 cents per US gallon tariff on ethanol.
While 18 Caribbean countries benefit from the CBI, Jamaica is among a group of only eight countries that benefit from the CBTPA.
Robertson said that in 2007, Jamaica exported 80 million gallons of ethanol to the US with the figure rising to 110 million in 2008. However, he said, the CBI countries only met 71 per cent of the total 2008 quota of 452 million gallons.
CBI countries have never reached the capacity of their ethanol quota, partly due to insufficient capacity.
Robertson said that between January and July this year, the island exported 51 million gallons of ethanol to the US, representing a mere 15 per cent of the 2009 quota.
However, Jamaica earns an estimated US$140 million annually from ethanol exports to the US and has, what Robinson said is, “an excellent relationship with other ethanol exporting countries”.
