Jamaican manufacturers say they intend to approach the island’s Anti-Dumping and Subsidies Commission after accusing their Trinidad and Tobago counterparts of “dumping” flour onto the local market.

Dumping is a kind of predatory pricing, when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price below the normal price.

The general manager of Seprod Limited Richard Pandohie told the financial Gleaner Newspaper Jamaica is getting dumped products out of Trinidad.

He said his company has approached Jamaica Flour Mills to go as an industry to complain to the anti-dumping commission about the situation because they are causing material damage to the industry on the island.

The paper quoted JF Mills general manager, Ralston Nembhard, as saying that the local industry had started noticing the situation prior to the Christmas season last year.

Mr. Nembhard said there has been a large influx of Trinidad flour at seemingly extraordinary prices, so industry players are definitely going in the direction of bringing an action against that.

He said in their own home market in Trinidad flour sells for about us$38 per 45-kilogram bag, so the difference between what they sell in their own market and what they sell in Jamaica is substantial, especially when the obvious freight cost from Trinidad up to Jamaica is taken into account.