(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Honourable Anthony Hylton, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce of Jamaica, has underscored that “the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM)-European Union (EU) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) must form an integral part of the regional export strategy.”
Minister Hylton shared this view on the occasion of a two-day gathering of several dozen leaders from business and government drawn from CARIFORUM States, under the aegis of the Caribbean Export Development Agency. Dubbed the Caribbean Exporters’ Colloquium, the high-profile forum is underway in Bridgetown, Barbados until March 21. It provides a platform for decision-makers from the Region’s public and private sectors to exchange views on export-led growth pertaining to the Caribbean, including examining some of the most pressing problems in relation to the policy and business environments regionally and in the EU that redound to the detriment of such an approach to growth.
The first part of day one set the context for what the Executive Director of the Caribbean Export Development Agency, Ms Pamela Coke-Hamilton, underscored from the outset of the Colloquium: “The conversation on export-led growth needs to be reinitiated in the Region.” The Colloquium is seen as a catalyst in this regard, drawing on elements of the recommendations emanating from the seminal ‘Time for Action’ Report tabled by the West Indian Commission (WIC) to the Heads of Government in 1992 which speak to export-led growth. Sir Shridath Ramphal, the Former Chairman of the WIC, drew attention to the relevant parts of the Report in his address to the forum.
His account served to anchor other presentations in that particular panel, and importantly has set the tone for the Colloquium as has the feature address of the opening ceremony delivered by Senator The Hon. Maxine McClean, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados. Senator McClean issued a charge to the forum to focus attention on a regional export strategy, of which an action plan would form a critical part. This matter will be taken up frontally on day two of the Colloquium. Indeed, it is the capstone of the Colloquium, and the session in which the matter is to be discussed seeks to establish the key pillars that underpin successful export-led growth and form the basis for creating a new strategic framework for export development.
During the second half of the first day, though, participants were seized of the following pronouncement by Dr The Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, who delivered the keynote luncheon address: “It is clear that the broad framework we have to provide for export-led growth and development in the Caribbean has to be a model in quest of building a modern, many-sided, competitive, post-colonial economy that is at once national, regional and global.”
While a panel immediately preceding Prime Minister Gonsalves’ address pointed to the mixed record of export performance under trade agreements entered into by CARIFORUM States, the panel thereafter provided a ‘snapshot of regional private sector operators that is more often than not hidden from view’. A rich array of entrepreneurial experiences was on display and practical knowledge shared by panelists. Based on the strength of their respective business models and success, the case examples of the firms that were showcased dispelled the not uncommon view held by some of the ‘struggling Caribbean enterprise’. The experiences of the firms in getting a foothold in and capitalizing on niche markets, as recounted by executives from these companies, were for participants at once inspiring and emblematic of best practice. The experiences of these firms were deemed by participants as all the more remarkable given that regional private sector operators are increasingly confronted by major adaptive challenges with respect to the external but also intraregional environments.
However Mr Ramesh Ramdeen, CEO of the Trinidad & Tobago Manufacturers’ Association, and one of the panelists, cautioned the largely private sector audience that breaking through markets, like those of the EU, presents “myriad challenges, including supply side, trade facilitation and regulatory constraints.”
The forum also turned attention to the intraregional trade landscape and impediments, in that regard, to the seamless flow of goods and services. In exploring ways to better harness and build on synergies in the intraregional context, participants reflected on what The Hon. Ryan Pinder, Minister of Financial Services of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas, had raised earlier in the day: “The importance of leveraging value chains within the Region, with respective countries contributing to a part of a whole that could redound to the benefit of one and all.”
The fifteen signatory Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (CARIFORUM) States to the EPA are the independent CARICOM Member States and the Dominican Republic.
CONTACT: Nand C. Bardouille
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) Implementation Unit
nbardouille@caricom.org
