The Assistant Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States says members fear their sugar will be rendered uncompetitive in the global market following the European Union decision to abolish quotas.
Achille Bassilekin, speaking in Fiji at the joint sugar meeting with the EU and Fiji, says suppliers are vulnerable.
He says when the EU is negotiating free trade agreements with other parties, developing ACP countries need to be considered.
He says he's happy some accompanying measures are still in place, but the EU decision on the sugar quota was a shock.
"With the impact study that was undertaken by the EU itself, that this will lead to a depression of prices, we should have been given more time. But the decision taken by the EU Parliament came to us as a surprise that the phasing out of these arrangements three years before what was initially promised."
The Assistant Secretary General of the ACP Achille Bassilekin.
