Articles on Trade with Caricom

01 July 2008 - Alphea Saunders

Kingston, Jamaica (JIS): Jamaica and its CARIFORUM partners are set to benefit from one of the most comprehensive and complex trade agreements that the region has ever undertaken.

This opportunity is being presented in the form of the soon to be signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), between the European Union and CARIFORUM countries.

Currently, the region is preparing not only to open its doors to Europe in a way that it never has before, but also to take full advantage of the 450 million high income consumers that the continent boasts.

Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, Dr Richard Bernal says the region needs this agreement for a number of critical reasons, including the fact that the EU is a major, long-standing partner in trade.

It was the disclosure last Wednesday in Georgetown by President Bharrat Jagdeo that, based on further information and legal advice obtained, the Guyana Government may not join Community partners in signing next month the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that was initialled last December in Barbados between representatives of the European Commission (EU) and CARIFORUM (Caricom plus Dominican Republic).

Prior to this development, and amid conflicting signals on moving the process forward to access the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final appellate institution for Community partners, there was the recent verbal blast by Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves over "political decision-making" in Caricom and his scathing dismissal of the Community Secretariat's functioning as "a ramshackle political-administrative apparatus..."

It is likely that Secretary General Edwin Carrington may allude in his remarks at the opening session, to Gonsalves' criticisms that were made on June 16 when he addressed the launch of public consultations on the draft OECS Economic Union Treaty.

15 May 2008 - Rickey Singh

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - There is to be a further delay in the proposed signing in Barbados of the Caribbean region's Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), originally expected before June 30.

Conflicting dates offered by the European Commission and the Barbados Government keep pushing back the signing ceremony to either mid or late July.

The EC recently proposed a July 14 or 15 signing but Barbados has counter-proposed either July 21 or July 23.

A compromise date for the historic signing ceremony is now likely to be discussed during this week's Fifth EU/Latin America and Caribbean Summit, scheduled to be held over two days, beginning on Friday in the Peruvian capital, Lima, a highly placed source told the Observer.

23 April 2008 - Caribbean 360.com

Caribbean negotiators in the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) have been knocked by Oxfam International for giving up too much in the services sector.

The Caribbean was the first of the six African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) regions to initial a full agreement with the EU by the December 2007 deadline and while the EU has held the Caribbean EPA up as a model, a recent analysis by Oxfam has characterised the agreement as a bad precedent.

In its report released on Monday entitled 'Partnership or Power Play? How Europe should bring development into its trade deals with African, Caribbean', Oxfam said Caribbean countries had placed themselves on a "slippery slope" by opening up essential services to the private sector.

Free trade with Europe will not be entirely free - Next hurdle: Non-tariff barriers

04 April 2008 - John Meyers Jr.

Europe's opening of its markets to Caribbean products will not mean automatic access to store shelves, according to a trade official who warned in Kingston this week that food exports would still have to hurdle non-tariff barriers.

Producers will have to satisfy the European Union trade bloc that their shipments meet established standards that countries use as a benchmark for quality.

Lincoln Price, the private sector liaison at the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), speaking at an agribusiness project launch Monday, said some of these conditions were 'burdensome and dense', often requiring that producers follow strict compliance procedures.

In that vein, he said, it was in the interest of farmers, agro-processors and exporters to educate themselves on the non-tariff barriers peculiar to their target export markets.

Jamaica's agriculture minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, acknowledged the issue as a political reality, but said exporters can overcome the barriers by being smart.

04 April 2008 - Norman Girvan

That is how former secretary general of the Association of Caribbean States, Professor Norman Girvan, has described the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and CARIFORUM countries (CARICOM and Dominican Republic).

Contrary to former Prime Minister Owen Arthur's recent view that the current EPA was "good enough" for Barbados and the region, Girvan said
it would lead to disintegration of CARICOM.

Arthur, delivering a lecture on March 11 on the same subject, said while some of the EPA's provisions amounted to "works in progress", it was good enough to assist the region in building a post-colonial economy, and could help Barbados' economic situation in trade and services.

20 March 2008 - David Jessop

Understanding the EPA  - Trade in goods schedule cumbersome

All free trade agree-ments are essentially about reducing tariffs on imported goods or lessening restrictions on the supply of services.

The theory is that by reducing the cost of goods for consumption or the cost of inputs used by manufacturers or service providers, industries and economies become more competitive.

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the Caribbean and Europe, a free-trade agreement in all but name, but with development objectives, is no exception.

Accompanying the legal text and at the heart of the EPA is a lengthy trade in goods schedule.

This sets out on a tariff line by tariff line and Cariforum country-by-country basis the pace and depth of the tariff cuts for thousands of categories of products that the Caribbean imports from Europe.

12 March 2008 - Jamaica Gleaner

Prime Minister Bruce Golding says the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between member states of CARIFORUM and the European Union will not take place as scheduled in April.

But Golding, who has lead responsibility for external trade negotiations in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), said he remained confident that the agreement would be signed within the time allowed under the accord.

"The original thinking was to have the signing done in the middle of April, but for a number of reasons, including the time that needs to be allowed for individual member states to carefully examine the text of the agreement and also recognising the fact that there have been two changes of government since the start of this year, it was felt that it was necessary for new governments to advise themselves properly before committing signatures to the agreement," Golding said.

The agreement has been signed, sealed and by April first, delivered. But that hasn’t stopped critics from opining about the recently signed EPA Agreement between Cariforum and the EU. Heads of States, academics, prime ministers, private and public sector organizations have commented. Journalists have complained of a lack of information and continued differences between the CRNM and the Caricom Secretariat have laid the foundations for continued questioning of the resulting EPA agreement. The CRNM, the negotiating arm of the Caricom Secretariat, has voiced the positive virtues, but still negative bells chime in the background, warning of the potential backlashes that the agreement will have. It has become a verbal chess match between proponents and detractors with each move, each round, bringing a new set of criticisms and accusations. In this latest round the CRNM has answered the many complaints voiced by regional academics Havelock Brewster, Norman Girvan and Vaughn Lewis in their recent charge against the CRNM. Below the CRNM answers to the group’s assertion.

On 16 December, 2007 the European Commission initialled an Economic Partnership Agreement with Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago (the CARIFORUM countries) covering all areas under negotiation.

This comprehensive trade and development agreement covers goods trade, services and investment as well as a wide range of trade-related areas. Sustainable development and regional integration are major themes running through this agreement which includes development cooperation provisions and links into the EU Aid for Trade Strategy.

CARIFORUM and the EU have finalised the technical correction and legal formatting of the agreement which is now being made public. On this website you will find the full text of the agreement, its annexes and its protocols.