CCJ rules in favour of reducing tax on imported hydraulic cement

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has ruled that the regional tax, known as the Common External Tariff (CET), payable on cement categorised as ‘other hydraulic cement’ should be set at five per cent. The ruling endorses a rate that is a fraction of the 60 per cent tariff that Barbados-based Rock Hard Cement had once paid on imports from Portugal and Turkey, according to the Jamaica Gleaner.

In 2001, Caricom’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) had granted Barbados an exemption of the of zero-five per cent CET so that the country could apply taxes of 60 per cent to ‘other hydraulic cement’. However, in 2015, Barbados decided to return to the CET and apply a five per cent tax on the hydraulic cement imported by Rock Hard Cement Ltd.

The claimants of the case, Trinidad Cement and Arawak Cement, brought the application against Barbados and reportedly stated that the country had contravened a previous treaty by unilaterally reducing and/or altering the CET on ‘other hydraulic cement’ from the rate approved by the COTED downward from 60 per cent to five per cent. They also claimed that Barbados misclassified extra-regional cement imported by Rock Hard as ‘other hydraulic cement’.