'Positive' Dominican Republic

by Dr. Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo

The Dominican Republic is very proud of its alliance with Caricom member states.

As Cariforum, we have placed firmly the priorities of Small and Vulnerable Economies (SVEs) in the agenda of the World Trade Organisation(WTO). As a result, whatever the outcome of the ongoing Doha Round, our economies will not have to liberalise further on a multilateral basis.

As CARIFORUM, we fight incessantly in Brussels, in Geneva and everywhere else, the erosion of the market access we have achieved in CARIFORUM for bananas, rum and sugar. As CARIFORUM, we have placed the achievement of competitiveness as a central requirement for sustainable development of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.

This is reflected in the revised Cotonou Agreement; in a number of CARIFORUM National Indicative Programmes (NIPs), as well as in the supportive programmes of our tenth CARIFORUM Regional Indicative Programme (CRIP), for an amount almost three times as big as the ninth CRIP.

But it is the whole set of precedents achieved by CARIFORUM member states in our EPA with the European Commission that truly stands apart.

Because our EPA is the first truly asymmetrical agreement between a region of developed and a region of developing countries.

* The first to liberalise fully, from day one, the market of the more developed counterpart, preserving and enhancing on a duty-free, quota-free basis the market access we enjoyed as part of the ACP group of states;

*the first to allow for product exclusions from free trade;

* the first to grant up to 25 years of tariff phase-out;

*the first to liberalise on a quota-free basis the temporary access into Europe for our natural persons, either as business visitors, intra-corporate transferees, contractual service suppliers or independent professionals;

*the first to include rules against the anti-competitive practices of tour operators and computerised reservation systems in tourism;

*the first to commit the parties to fight corruption in the negotiation of foreign direct investment contracts;

*the first to include a meaningful development dimension with competitiveness at its core;

*the first to create a regional development fund;

*the first to have ensured full transparency for civil society during the process, and to build into the agreement such transparency by creating new parliamentary and economic and social consultative committees.

As a result, we in the Dominican Republic see our EPA as the first development-enhancing agreement.

You can understand, then, our enthusiasm for an appropriate and consensus-based implementation of what we, as CARIFORUM, have achieved together. We fully recognise that the Dominican Republic is just one of 15 CARIFORUM member states. That is why in our statement to the fifth CARIFORUM Ministerial (Guyana, 26 November 2008), we have tabled a non-exhaustive list of institutional options to perform the regional coordination of EPA implementation. I have attached a copy for your consideration.

Since the very beginning, the Dominican Republic has always insisted that all CARIFORUM states should contribute to this debate and that its outcome should be a decision by the explicit consensus of all of us.

We firmly believe that, if we do this right, the CARIFORUM region will stand a higher chance for increased and diversified trade and investment flows with Europe.

But most importantly, the CARIFORUM region will be able to deepen its integration, precisely in these difficult moments for the world economy, when domestic and regional markets are the only safe outlets for our products.

There is already a positive trade balance between CARICOM states and the Dominican Republic. This is a response that must be coordinated effectively and efficiently by all of us with the help of a CARIFORUM institution that truly believes in CARIFORUM integration. I hope these lines suffice to place our statement to the CARIFORUM Ministerial in its appropriate context.

(Prof. Dr. Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo is Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the European Communities.

A member of the CARIFORUM College of Negotiators.

Former chairman of the ACP Committee of Ambassadors (Geneva, 2002 and Brussels, 2006) and former chairman of the CARIFORUM Group (Geneva, 2001 and Brussels, 2006).

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