Government has lauded the work of Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) in its Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Commis-sion.
Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon told the media on Friday that Cabinet considered the performance of the negotiators commendable. He noted that the agreement on Trade in Goods and Service with the Europeans provided for World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatibility but reversed the developmental commitments of the previous trade agreements with Caricom and the other African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) signatories.
He said Cabinet has paid attention to the impact of the agreement on the Caricom sugar quota but could not ignore the fact that sugar price reductions were already announced and implemented.
Guyana will get a minimal increase in its European Union (EU) sugar quota under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which was signed between the EU and Cariforum countries on Sunday last after four years of negotiations.
The EPA, which comes into force on January 1, 2008 replaces the Cotonou Agreement and the Sugar Protocol (SP), and will see the regional sugar quota increase by 60,000 tonnes. The SP, signed between the EU and ACP sugar-producing 32 years ago, had been unilaterally scrapped by the EU in September.
Of the 60,000-tonne allocation to the region, the Dominican Republic, which was not a SP country in the past and had no quota now gets a 30,000-tonne allocation. Guyana, which already has a quota of 161,000 tonnes, will share the rest of the new allocation with Belize and Jamaica. “At least we got something out of that,” Foreign Trade Minister Henry Jeffrey had told this newspaper.
However, Jeffrey added that he believed the agreement’s intention is to get sugar-producing countries on a competitive footing by doing away with the preferential treatment. He said he also felt that the Europeans could have been a little bit more flexible in terms of the timeframe for doing away with the preferences. “It was not to be, because, according to them, they have their own agricultural policy and agricultural reform that they are undertaking,” he said.
Recognising the region’s negotiators led by Director of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery Dr Richard Bernal, Jeffrey said, “They have done well in terms of hard negotiations. It was four years of hard slog and I think for the most part they have come through for us.”
Although, like in any negotiation, the region did not get everything it sought, he noted that one area saw some measure of success as there is to be some development aid.
Guyana’s representative on the negotiating team, Neville Totaram, at a press conference had told the media that a time-bound restriction was placed on cumulation within Cariforum on sugar-based products and rice during the periods that quotas will apply – for rice until December 31, 2010 and for sugar until September 30, 2015.
However, the European Commis-sion, he said, agreed to review the list of products for which cumulation will not be allowed after three years, with a view to reducing the list.
The rules of origin applying to imports under the General System of Preferences, which take effect from January 1, allow under certain conditions, for cumulation of origin. Where those conditions are met, inputs from other countries are considered as originating in the exporting country. Provisions on cumulation thus extend the possibilities for producers in beneficiary countries to use such inputs.
