NCA welcomes the Office of the US Trade Representative's imported sugar move

The National Confectioners Association has welcomed a decision by the Office of the US Trade Representative to reallocate unused country-specific quota allocations under the tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on imported raw cane sugar for 2023, reports Neill Barston. As the trade organisation noted, it has recently written to president Biden to encourage the government to take action to address high prices and low supplies of sugar for food and beverage manufacturing in the United States. Notably, the issue was touched upon by NCA president John Downs at this year’s State of the Industry Conference in Miami last week, in which he highlighted the cost of sugar in region – which remains of vital importance to the sector, remains an issue. (See our video review of the key US event here.) According to MarketWatch, the price of candy and chewing gum increased by a factor of 12.2% year-on-year in recent government data releases. This corresponded with a 13.5% rise in sugar and sugar substitute ...