MEXICO: Mexico and the United States reached a deal on Monday to avert potentially steep duties on Mexi-can sugar imports to the United States, defusing a months-long dispute.

In the deal hammered out hours before US regulators were going to slap penalties on Mexican imports, the US Department of Commerce said officials initiated a draft agreement that would suspend both anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties on the goods, if adopted in full.

The deal would set a price floor to guard against undercutting or keeping US prices artificially low, smooth out supply over the year and limit the amount of refined sugar that may enter the US market, it said. A source close to the negotiations said Mexico could export 1.4 million tonnes of sugar in 2014.

The concessions will help resolve a dispute that threatened to spiral into a tit-for-tat trade war after Mexico war­ned it would take US support for its sugar industry to the World Tra­de Organisation (W­TO) and might consider retaliatory dut­i­es on US fructose.

Published in Dawn, October 29th , 2014