(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The rapid changes in the global scenario and the imminent changes that would be wrought by the trading arrangements now being put in place provided a good opportunity for the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) to engage in self-examination, Dr. The Hon Henry Jeffrey, Minister of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation of Guyana said Wednesday.
“If ever there is need for us to engage in serious self-examination, the time is now,” the Minister said in remarks at the opening ceremony of the Fifth Meeting of the CARIFORUM Council of Ministers at Le Meridien Pegasus in Georgetown, Guyana.
The meeting which followed the two-day Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the Council of Trade and Economic Development (COTED) is being held against the background of global financial and economic crisis, and mere weeks after 14 CARIFORUM Member States signed and Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Community. CARIFORUM is about to begin provisional application of the Agreement.
The implementation of the EPA, the Doha Development Agenda and Brazil’s initiative to bring together leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the integration and development of the two regions, were among the items on the agenda of the Meeting.
Communities such as CARIFORUM, the Minister said, must use every opportunity to network and cooperate, and be vigilant to ensure that “we are present and prepared” to safeguard its interests and “do so with all the skill and political influence at our disposal”.
His Excellency Edwin Carrington, Secretary General of CARIFORUM, in his address, also made reference to the global trading arrangements, in particular the Doha talks and urged Member States to be prepared “to participate meaningfully and vigorously promote its own positions in collaboration with like minded countries.”
Secretary-General Carrington noted the enormous amount of work that had to be undertaken to make the Agreement a reality and pointed out that the Region had no time to waste in getting organised to implement and benefit from it. He told the Meeting that he recently signed the 165 million euro10th European Development Fund Regional Support Programme and the Regional Indicative Programme and a significant portion of the funding would be used to assist in the implementation of the EPA.
“EPA implementation is the dominant item on the Agenda of this Meeting and given the fact that we are about to commence the provisional application of the Agreement, we do not have a moment to waste in getting ourselves organized to implement and to benefit from that Agreement,” the Secretary-General said.
He pointed to the need for the establishment of CARIFORUM regional bodies within which internal preparatory dialogue would take place prior to engaging the European Commission and Union
With reference to the precarious position of the Region’s banana industry, Minister Jeffrey noted that just days after signature of the EPA, the EC has offered the banana exporting countries of Latin America a deal that “will hasten the exit of most of the CARIFORUM countries from the EC market”.
“Our deliberations today must address our response to the EC on this important issue but we must also consider the options for transformation of the economies of our banana exporting countries,” he said.
