IN response to your article "Charity wants sugar reform" (Business Press, November 16), with something as complex as the European Sugar Regime simple judgements can be misleading.

This regime is designed for the domestic EU sugar industry which represents some 90 per cent of consumption in the EU.

Tate & Lyle is the principal bridge into the EU and Pacific (ACP) countries and, increasingly, the least developed countries (LDCs).

In many cases, our relationship with our suppliers in these countries goes back decades.

As a function of the EU Sugar Regime, we pay more than three times the world market price for the raw sugar that comes from these ACP countries and the LDCs.

That adds up to around £400 million more for their sugar than they would get without preferential access to the EU market.

Any 'subsidies', as they are dubbed by Oxfam, are a mechanism by which we are able to pay these high prices for our raw material.

This money is clearly passed on to the farmers and their families in these countries.

The sugar industry plays a highly significant role in the economies of these countries and provides livelihoods for around 300,000 farmers and their families.

Sugar provides important rural employment, both direct and indirect, and the mills provide professional opportunities for a range of skills.

Unlike many other industries in the developing world, sugar provides a high level of net foreign exchange earnings which, being trade rather than aid, finds its way efficiently to the people who grow the sugar.

In some of these countries the sugar industries also provide the education and health facilities for families linked to the sugar industry.

Chris Fox,

Director of corporate

relations,

Tate & Lyle plc,

Lower Thames Street,

London.

Updated: 10:45 Friday, December 03, 2004