The news daily Listin Diario reports that a confidential source has told it that Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM) Trade Ministers told the DR’’ delegation in Suriname last week that the revised CARICOM proposal for the "negative list" of products to be outside the trade liberalization measures of the DR-CARICOM trade treaty will be substantially shorter than the one CARICOM first proposed last November. The new CARICOM proposal is expected to be delivered to the DR within two weeks. In November, the DR suggested 11 products, while CARICOM suggested nearly 900; the DR walked out of the talks in protest. According to Listin’s source, the DR is now proposing 15 products (seven of them agricultural products included in the DR’s "Technical Rectification" to the Uruguay Round Agricultural Agreement), while Trinidad and Tobago wants CARICOM to agree on only 14 and the other CARICOM members are pushing for up to 200.
