Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottly says Government will implement robust mitigation measures to shield consumers from the knock-on effects of a looming increase in freight charges.
The increases are expected to result from proposed United States trade penalties targeting Chinese-built ships under the US Trade Representative’s (USTR)
Section 301 investigation, which aims to revitalise domestic shipbuilding by penalising foreign, particularly Chinese, dominance in maritime logistics.
In an interview with the DAILY NATION last night ahead of her bilateral engagement in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mottley said Barbados will not pass the increased costs on to consumers through elevated duties or taxes. She added that Government will once again freeze freight values at December 2019 levels for customs valuation purposes, as it had done during the COVID-19 pandemic, to prevent inflationary pressure on basic commodities.
“We are not going to allow these proposed increases in freight costs to distort duty calculations and push up the cost of living. Just as we did during COVID, we are acting pre-emptively to prevent unnecessary hardship.”
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