Gill: Market Access Simulation Exceeds Expectations

CHRIST CHURCH, BARBADOS – Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) Senior Director Mr. Henry Gill described a market access negotiating skills workshop that concluded today in Christ Church, Barbados and that brought together trade negotiators from across the Caribbean as “one of the most important preparatory exercises organized to date, as regards the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations or any other theatre of external trade negotiations for that matter.” In closing remarks which assessed the outcomes of the simulation workshop, Mr. Gill noted that the exercise had “exceeded expectations.”
Organized by the RNM, with the generous support of the Brussels-based Project Management Unit for ACP Capacity Building for EPA Negotiations (PMU), the Simulation Programme on Market Access Issues in CARIFORUM-EC EPA Negotiations assembled senior officials tasked with market access negotiations from fourteen CARIFORUM Member States, the Region’s EPA Lead and Alternate Negotiators on Market Access, and representatives of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, CARICOM and OECS Secretariats, and the RNM.
The activity, which began on September 11, sought to advance the Region’s preparations for EPA negotiations with the EC in the area of market access and development, through the conduct of a simulation exercise with real country-specific and regionally consolidated trade data. As a result of the simulation, the expectation is the Region’s market access negotiators will be in a position to carry out more detailed tariff analysis at the country level, and better engage in regional-level negotiations aimed at framing proposals on behalf of the CARIFORUM countries as a whole. According to Mr. Gill, “the RNM had anticipated that this simulation exercise would facilitate the real-world formulation of a regional approach to EPA market access negotiations, consideration of how this can be linked to development requirements and the enumeration of areas where additional technical and strategic thinking is required. On all three counts, the exercise was a success.”
The timing of this joint RNM/PMU activity takes full cognizance of the Second CARIFORUM – EC Ministerial on EPA, slated for September 30 in St. Lucia. The Joint Ministerial meeting will both review Phase II of the negotiations, with its emphasis on the CARIFORUM regional integration phase, and establishing approaches to the treatment of issues in Phase III. In terms of some of the major issues to be addressed under the rubric of market access in Phase III and IV of CARIFORUM – EC EPA negotiations, these will include approaches to trade liberalization, the treatment of sensitive products and measures aimed at enhancing the access of Caribbean exports to the EU market.
The principal facilitator of the simulation was Dr. Christopher Stevens of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex University.