http://dr1.com/trade en-us N/A robert@dr1.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:36:47 EST 20 http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1300/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html
A few days ago I was asked a question by the host of one of Jamaica’s morning talk shows. He wanted to know if the time had come for the Caribbean to adopt a new approach to the outside world, given that those it regarded as its traditional friends were taking ever less interest.

My reply was a very definite yes. I suggested that the region and more realistically individual nations ought to consider ever more closely where their economic self-interest lay and reposition their diplomacy accordingly. I observed that the world had moved on, developed nations had few strategic interests to defend in the Caribbean, and the region had little option other than to pursue a foreign and economic policy that owed more to the future than to the past.

What I did not say was that in the real world this means the development of policies and strategies that enable the nations of the Caribbean together, separately or as sub-regional groupings to choose issues on which they have a better chance to leverage what  they require from foreign governments. By this I do not mean a foreign policy of mendacity but one that is well considered and which supports and delivers national or regional development objectives.

For a region as small, economically insignificant and divided as the Caribbean is, the secret of success most probably lies in finding issues that link the region’s interests  to what matters most to the developed world.

Up to now it seems the issues that the region has taken to the international community, while worthy, have been marginal to the interests of the G20, the grouping that brings together the world’s leading economic powers.
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:43:45 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1300/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1299/1/The-View-From-Europe/Page1.html By David Jessop

A few days ago I was asked a question by the host of one of Jamaica’s morning talk shows. He wanted to know if the time had come for the Caribbean to adopt a new approach to the outside world, given that those it regarded as its traditional friends were taking ever less interest.

My reply was a very definite yes. I suggested that the region and more realistically individual nations ought to consider ever more closely where their economic self-interest lay and reposition their diplomacy accordingly. I observed that the world had moved on, developed nations had few strategic interests to defend in the Caribbean, and the region had little option other than to pursue a foreign and economic policy that owed more to the future than to the past.

What I did not say was that in the real world this means the development of policies and strategies that enable the nations of the Caribbean together, separately or as sub-regional groupings to choose issues on which they have a better chance to leverage what  they require from foreign governments. By this I do not mean a foreign policy of mendacity but one that is well considered and which supports and delivers national or regional development objectives.
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:42:49 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1299/1/The-View-From-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1248/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html
In a few days time, Caribbean Heads of Government will meet in Georgetown, Guyana. There they will try to address an ever-increasing list of unresolved issues.

This will be an important moment as many in the region and beyond will be watching to see whether the participants can reconcile their ever more public differences and demonstrate they have the will to move on.

These twice annual summits have become less than edifying. Despite the pomp and protocol that seeks to dignify such events, these occasions seem incapable of achieving a consensus on little more than the nature of the problems the region faces.

The areas of divergence are legion.  They range from the failure to progress Caricom’s relationship with the Dominican Republic, through something close to warfare over the freedom of movement and migration, to the continuing absence of region-wide financial regulation. It encompasses the failure of Governments to meet Caribbean Single Market and Economy deadlines, the continuing absence of any regional response to the year old global economic crisis, disagreement on how to implement or move forwards trade negotiations, and inaction on support for a tourism industry in crisis.   ]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:37:39 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1248/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1210/1/Why-the-nervousness-about-Caricom/Page1.html
A barrage of comment by both the political leadership of the region, and commentators in the press, suggests a certain concern about the Caribbean Community’s direction. A post-Jamaica election comment by the then new Prime Minister Bruce Golding raised questions about Jamaica’s ability to implement the provisions of the CSME insofar as they applied to certain kinds of collective decision-making cohesion felt to be required to manage the single economy. The occasion for the Prime Minister’s sentiments seemed to be discussions, on the morrow of his party’s election, between the Caricom Secretariat and himself on the possibility of implementing institutional arrangements foreshadowed in the Report of the Caricom Technical Working Group on Governance, Managing Mature Regionalism.

Golding’s sentiments raised concerns about Jamaica’s desire – to ensure the maintenance of its independent sovereignty – deemed to be the cause of the demise of the West Indies Federation. And indeed, with the Jamaica Labour Party’s unwillingness to subscribe to the Caribbean Court of Justice, and its consequent refusal to support legislation proposed by the then Prime Minister PJ Patterson, Mr Golding’s  party had signalled that its old reservations remained, and would be maintained. Patterson’s attempt to square a circle by getting agreement at the Caricom heads level, in 2003, that whatever form economic integration took, Caricom would remain a “Community of Sovereign States,” obviously did not persuade the JLP.

During the first years of the decade of the 2000s leading up to agreement on the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and on arrangements and a date for the establishment of the CSME, additional concerns to that of the sovereignty issue started to be raised again. Jamaica, under Golding’s immediate predecessor, Portia Simpson, raised grave concern at what it considered an unfair approach by the Government of Trinidad to the pricing of natural gas needed for the pursuit of an aluminium smelter industry in Jamaica. Other countries, including Barbados and some of the OECS states, raised the issue of an insufficiently collective approach to the maintenance of LIAT, pointing the finger again at Trinidad, in terms of what was perceived as its unwillingness to take a holistic view of air transportation arrangements in the region, and thus autonomously pursuing its privatization of BWIA. Trinidad, on the other hand seemed to feel that the complainers were unwilling to face the harsh decisions about LIAT that needed to be taken. ]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:28:13 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1210/1/Why-the-nervousness-about-Caricom/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1185/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html
What has happened to the Doha Round at the World Trade Organisation (WTO); the multilateral trade negotiation that was meant to encourage development through liberalising trade in goods and services?

You would be forgiven for believing that the exchanges begun in 2001 and all but stalled since July 2008, have been overwhelmed by the events of the last eighteen months.

Then a surge in food and energy prices, followed by a global banking and economic crisis, and the consequent recession, seemed to have, at the very least, diminished many governments appetite for market opening. So much so that even those who believe that free trade is a panacea for many of the world’s ills have reluctantly accepted that greater regulation and even measures that might be regarded as protectionist might be need to defend both developed and developing economies.

But perhaps surprisingly there is movement, albeit slight, in Geneva where the new US Administration has begun to explore what might be needed to restart the negotiations and bring them to a conclusion.

Last month, Ron Kirk, the new US Trade Representative (USTR), travelled to Geneva to quietly re-engage with Ambassadors from a wide range of nations including those from the Caribbean and Latin America.
 
Until then it was far from certain how the Obama Administration would approach the idling WTO round. During Mr Kirk’s visit it became clear that the new US trade strategy is to explore whether changes in the structure of the WTO negotiations might enable movement forwards.
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:23:13 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1185/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1184/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html
A little over a week ago, Sir Shridath Ramphal addressed some of those who will be the region’s future Ambassadors. His comments were framed in the context of Caribbean foreign policy. However, they also spoke to the future of regionalism in a Caribbean that, in the true meaning of the word, appears to be slowly disintegrating.

In stark language that deserved greater media attention, he said:
‘At this moment, (the) smaller, narrower, insular impulse is dominant. We are turning inward just at the moment when the external environment of crisis demands responses driven by the spirit of community. Not only are we not going forward in fulfilment of professed goals - like the Caricom Single Market - we are actually retreating from both the spirit and letter of community agreements - like those that bear on the movement of Caribbean people. If we allow these negative instincts to prevail; we will lose altogether the reality of ‘community’ which is within our grasp; and endanger the Caribbean personality which should be its underpinning.
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:54:06 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1184/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1167/1/Sanders-on-the-Spanish-Caribbean/Page1.html Sanders makes the point that the EPA's Regional Preference clause obliges Cariforum states to extend to each other the same treatment they extend to EU. "Therefore, from the DR's standpoint since it has entered a game, it makes sense to help make the rules."
He also mentions that it is only a matter of time before "the big three", the Spanish-speaking Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic) dominate in the region, "with markets and investment opportunities that are far greater than all the Caricom countries", he explains.
"Caricom countries would delude themselves if they believe that with their individual small markets, high investment costs, high costs of doing business and vulnerabilities both to natural disasters and external economic shocks - such as the current global financial meltdown - they could each operate successfully in the global marketplace in competition with the 'big three'", he writes.
www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/...

18 May 2009 - DR1 Daily News  ]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Sat, 30 May 2009 15:59:33 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1167/1/Sanders-on-the-Spanish-Caribbean/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1144/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html
Across the Caribbean, from Guyana to Belize, once peaceful and well ordered societies have become hosts to narcotics trafficking, money laundering, extortion, gun crime, kidnapping, robbery with violence, and more recently, those who would support acts of international terrorism. The growth has been exponential and no nation has been exempt, although some so far have managed to avoid the headlines.

The origins lie largely in the Caribbean’s geographic location; its relative economic underdevelopment; the presence of significant pockets of social deprivation; and the attraction these factors all present to narcotics traffickers who are able to command sums larger than national budgets.

There are of course other contributory reasons, including social disaffection among youth; weak and underpaid law enforcement agencies; the presence of largely US criminal deportees; and the cross border trafficking of US arms between the Dominican Republic and Haiti that enables their subsequent shipment to the rest of the region.
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Sat, 30 May 2009 15:46:42 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1144/1/The-View-from-Europe/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1143/1/Caricoms-pilgrimage/Page1.html
A series of meetings of ministerial and heads of government is being held in the region at both the Caricom and OECS levels at this time, in preparation for their usual more formal and scheduled  mid-year meetings. The heads have found themselves meeting more frequently this year, as the financial and economic meltdowns in the United States and Europe have descended. They are aware too, that the financial breakdowns by major conglomerates like CLICO and the Stanford Group have given many of our citizens in both the OECS and Caricom a deep sense of imminent threat to the livelihoods of their citizens.

But as we meander our way through these events, there is obviously an underlying sense in the words and minds of both the regional technocrats and heads of government of our states, of uncertainties in our region which do not have their sources mainly in the wider international shake-up.  Caricom Secretary General Carrington, addressing the recent meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) last week, noted the current global financial and economic crisis. And he also observed that there have been “forces of globalization and free trade over the past two and a half decades” that “have wrought havoc on small vulnerable developing economies such as ours in the Caribbean Community.”

But he also chose to remind the meeting that he “could not help noticing that a number of the issues thereon have been on the Agenda of the COTED from many years.” And while observing that it was “certainly time that such issues be resolved,” the Secretary-General advised the meeting (surely not for the first time), that “the need for firm decision-making and robust implementation measures is paramount.”
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Sat, 30 May 2009 15:44:15 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1143/1/Caricoms-pilgrimage/Page1.html http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1142/1/The-Big-Three-and-little-Caricom-in-the-Caribbean/Page1.html
The government of the Dominican Republic (DR) has applied to become a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom), and heads of government of the regional organisation will consider the application at their meeting in July.
SIR RONALD SANDERS

There is not much to consider.

Caricom countries along with the DR form CARIFORUM and last year they each signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the 27-nation European Union (EU) which overtakes the objectives of Caricom's slow-paced Single Market and Economy in many aspects.

Professor Norman Girvan has pointed out that "the EPA defines the Dominican Republic as part of the 'region': the DR has an economy that is larger than that of any single Caricom country and the equivalent of 64 per cent of the combined size of all 14 Caricom economies. The existing Caricom-Dominican Republic free trade agreement covers only goods, has not yet been extended to services and does not contemplate extension to trade-related issues.

The EPA's Regional Preference clause obliges CARIFORUM states to extend to each other the same treatment they extend to the EU. CSME countries will therefore liberalise goods, services and investment with regard to non-CSME Caricom countries and to the Dominican Republic at the same rate as to the EU".
]]> no@spam.com (Lu Olivero) Tue, 19 May 2009 16:55:59 EDT http://dr1.com/trade/articles/1142/1/The-Big-Three-and-little-Caricom-in-the-Caribbean/Page1.html