NAIROBI (IPS) - Kenya is in talks with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) about extending a period of preferential treatment given to the country's sugar sector four years ago. This is in response to fears that local producers will not be able to survive open competition from their counterparts in the trade bloc when the period ends in March 2008.
Preferential treatment was granted so that Kenya could carry out reforms in its sugar industry to make the locally produced commodity competitive -- notably with sugar from Malawi, Mauritius and Sudan.
