Ministry of Agriculture seeks to facilitate oil for food trade

Fri Aug 02, 2013

St Vincent and the Grenadines, through the Ministry of Agriculture, is seeking to develop a framework through which they will be able to trade oil for food with Venezuela.{{more}}

Minister of Agriculture Saboto Caesar made the disclosure during an interview with SEARCHLIGHT on Monday morning.

Caesar, along with agricultural officer in the Planning Unit Colville King, recently visited Venezuela for the first meeting of Ministers and Authorities in Social Development, Hunger Eradication and Poverty of the community of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Minister revealed that while there, he also held discussions with Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. “On a monthly basis, St Vincent and the Grenadines is the purchaser of oil from Venezuela and the arrangement, which is being negotiated currently, is that pursuant to the compensation for the oil that an allocation can be made for some of the monies to be paid in cash and the balance in the value of goods from St Vincent and the Grenadines,” the Minister explained.

“In our meeting with PDVSA in Venezuela, we discussed the products that we can make available in order for us to facilitate the oil for food trade.

“We also discussed with PDVSA some of the other commodities that we can also supply to Venezuela pursuant to the trade, so whilst the first limb of the trade has to deal with oil for food, PDVSA has outlined that we can also produce other goods which we can trade for oil,” he added.

According to Caesar, some of these goods that are being considered include toilet tissue and galvanize.

The Minister also mentioned that he was given an extensive tour of a state-owned supermarket in Venezuela.

“What we did is that we brought up some products from Venezuela, so that our agro-processors can see them and that we can do a comparison, so that we can produce, using the specific contents which are a part of the culinary culture of Venezuela.

“So, the first meeting was basically to negotiate the over racking process and to cross the very important hurdle that we can operationalize trade,” Caesar further stated.

He explained that the next step will be to send samples to Venezuela.

Presently, the Ministry of Agriculture has embarked on a drive to collect these samples from agro-processors.

Caesar encouraged all agro-processors to carry samples of their products to the Ministry of Agriculture.

“Bring in their samples so that we can send the samples down to Venezuela.

“We are also working with some agro-processors already, because we would have brought up samples, so we would have given them to local agro-processors to see whether or not they can come into the same taste, in terms of those food stuff that we brought up.

“Same taste, same quality and in some instances same texture, so that we can send them back to Venezuela and they can give us the green light that these are the goods that they would want to purchase,” he said. “Of course we have to be price competitive and what is interesting is that in this Venezuela trade, at least for now, we are looking at the export of processed goods in the first instance. So we are not going at this time with the dasheen, the tannia, the eddoes, the bananas in their raw form or the pineapples in their raw form.

“The export in the first instance definitely would be in processed goods,” Caesar added.