Local coffee farmers seeking to export to the lucrative Chinese market can now breathe a sigh of relief as the Jamaica Agricultural Commodity Regulatory Authority (JACRA), the arm of government that regulates coffee imports and exports, has moved to resolve issues with registration for China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC).

Late last year, groups representing local coffee farmers warned of a looming threat of a ban on coffee exports to China, due to unresolved issues with JACRA’s registration with the GACC.

This is after China’s managing body for imports and exports, GACC, implemented new registration requirements for the exporting of goods into Asia’s largest market.

However, Chairman of the Jamaica Coffee Exporters Association (JCEA) Norman Grant told Our Today that those issues have now been resolved.

“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the team at JACRA, the Government, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also Ambassador Arthur Williams [Jamaica’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China], that matter is now resolved. We can now export our green beans to this emerging China market, which I think it is just great. It’s a concern that was short-lived. We had to raise it because it meant loss of revenues, loss of dollars for the Jamaican farmers but to the extent that it is now resolved, we want to commend the Government, we want to commend JACRA for their tremendous work,” he said.

What was the issue?

JCEA’s chairman explained that JACRA had difficulties getting the registration for GACC due to a conflict of interest where the entity serves as both the regulator and the sole exporter of local coffee.

“Two years ago, the Chinese Government created a new customs declaration regime where you have to be assigned a number to export coffee to the Chinese market. All of us who export roasted coffee we did that registration and we were commercial actors so we were able to export roasted coffee. They came back a year after to say that the same principle applies to green beans. So the nature of how we export green beans is different from how we export roasted coffee.

“By law, the Coffee Industry Board is the only exporter of green beans, so when I am exporting green beans I send it to JACRA, (but) JACRA is really the exporter so the Chinese Government had a problem with the regulator and the government agency to be the exporter because they claim its a conflict of interest because to the extent that they are regulating us, they should not be an exporter so JACRA had some difficulties to get the registration and diplomatically that has to be demonstrated, JACRA is the sole exporter by law and it took time for them to accept. But they have now issued a registration number to JACRA, so JACRA can continue to export,” Grant explained.

Grant said while he is comfortable with the current export arrangement with JACRA, there will be a need for discussions to develop a new regime to govern coffee exports in the future.