(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Trade Ministers of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) agreed on a negotiating brief for scheduled trade talks between CARICOM and Canada.
At a Special Meeting of CARICOM’S Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) which ended in Georgetown, Guyana on Monday night, 2nd March, the Ministers agreed to recommend for approval by the CARICOM Heads of Government, the brief presented by the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM). The Ministers were especially insistent on the need for any agreement to have a strong development aspect particularly given the impact of the current global financial and economic crisis on the Region. A core group of Ministers will meet with their Canadian counterpart prior to the start of negotiations to find common ground on the treatment of development in the negotiations.
Following extensive discussions under the chairmanship of the Hon. Clifford Marica, Minister of Trade and Industry of Suriname, on the preparations for the negotiation, the Ministers also agreed that the Secretariats of CARICOM and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, in collaboration with the CRNM, would produce a document that focuses on the development needs of the Community.
The COTED Ministers also discussed implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed between the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) Member States and the European Community (EC). The Ministers welcomed the establishment by the CARICOM Secretariat of an EPA Implementation Unit led by Mr Branford Isaacs and saw it as a key element in ensuring that Member States were well organized to meet the requirements of the Agreement.
Discussion continued the following day, 3rd March at the Sixth Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the CARIFORUM with matters relating to institutional arrangements for the implementation of the EPA and approaches to the execution of the regional preference provisions among the key issues considered. Regional preference refers to the need for CARIFORUM countries to extend no less favourable treatment to each other than they extend to European countries under the EPA.
While considerable progress was made, further deliberations must be conducted before decisions could be made at the level of the Heads of Government of CARIFORUM. CARIFORUM comprises the Member States of CARICOM, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Cuba is not a party to the EPA.
The CARIFORUM Meeting, chaired by the Hon. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and International Cooperation of Guyana, also considered developments relating to binding the EC’s Most Favoured Nation tariff on bananas and the implications for Caribbean Rum exports to the EC.
