Trade Minister Designate, K. T Hammond has made a strong case for a review of the country’s Import Substitution Policy to ensure that the country substantially benefit from the export earnings

The policy seeks to decrease imports and produce more locally to support the economy.

But years after its implementation, the country is still struggling to reduce its dependency on imports.

Speaking at Parliament’s Appointments Committee, Mr. Hammond noted that the time has come to take a second look at the policy.

He stated that it is time to re-evaluate the policy to strengthen its implementation to save the economy.

“You are looking at rice, beverages. We happen to have found out that we were smuggling rice into the country without disclosing. If you look at how much is produced locally, how much we consume and you do the subtraction, there is a gap of close to about 500, 600 metric tons which has been consumed but was not accounted for through the system,” he disclosed.

He explained that the amount of goods imported into the country put pressure on the local currency when the country is unable to export goods to match its imports.

“So there is that, and then secondhand vehicles and secondhand clothing and quite a lot that the government feels that to ensure some sanity in the system should be looked at”, he added.

Mr. Hammond assured that he will work with relevant stakeholders to correct the anomalies.

“I have very clear views in my own mind of what should be done to obviously encourage stakeholders by what I read in the government papers”, he said.

Touching on the textile industry, Mr. Hammond said there is the need to streamline imports of certain goods to protect local industry.

“Government is very clear on what should be done. Why all this import substitutions, particularly on the textile front. We keep literally importing everything from China. Some of them terribly high quality but we import all this things”.

He pledged that the Ministry will work with all stakeholders to ensure that the inter-ministerial committee working on revamping the textile industry works to make the sector productive.

“So I see that a committee is been tasked to ensure that whatever is immediately available financially possible and reasonable should be done by those responsible and for those responsible, I think am looking at the committee superintendent over by the Ministry of Trade to ensure that this companies are brought to life”.