This is an extract of Patricia Hewitt's speech to the EU parliament (also same text from Baroness Symonds):-  (for full text see http://www.dti.gov.uk/ministers/speeches/hewitt210103.html )

Why We Must Cut Subsidies

Take the example of sugar in Mozambique. The industry is the largest source of formal employment and can produce sugar at roughly half the cost as the EU. Three-quarters of the rural population live in abject poverty. Although the industry has the potential to employ 40,000 people, at present it is only employing 23,000 - thanks in part to the subsidies that we in Europe give to our own sugar exports. Even after the amendments to our sugar regime under the EBA programme, European subsidies will this year deprive Mozambique of around $106 million in lost revenue according to our calculations. Of course the EU does give aid to Mozambique, but it isn't much more - $136m per year.

So we are giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

The same story is told in Zambia and Malawi - like Mozambique, amongst the least developed countries of the world. All three produce sugar far more competitively than we do, yet none of them can compete against our subsidised exports to Nigeria and Algeria.

In 2001 the EU exported nearly 1 million tonnes to these two countries alone. If Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique had access to that market, it would have been worth an estimated $185 million to them or 13 per cent of their total exports.