Three Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are moving ahead with the setting up of local Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) implementation units aimed at assisting Cariforum countries to capitalize on funding avenues which are expected to be made available by the European Union but Guyana’s is not far advanced.
Stabroek Business has learnt that Jamaica, a vocal regional advocate of the EPA, has already completed the setting up of its monitoring unit which works out of the Office of the Prime Minister.
The local EPA units will also be responsible for the dissemination of information to the various groups in their respective countries that may be seeking to take advantage of opportunities that may arise within the framework of the EPA.
Late last month Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) officials met in Jamaica where they announced that the CAIC will set up an EPA Implementation Committee. This committee will be responsible for monitoring the compliance of signatories to the EPA with the provisions of the agreement, assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of the measures and policies agreed upon under the EPA, providing a plausible indication of the degree to which the EPA impacts on trade and development and identifying reasons why some desired impacts may not materialise.
Stabroek Business has seen a copy of the report issued at the conclusion of the Jamaica meeting, which said that its primary purpose was to enhance the regional private sector’s understanding as to how and when the provisions of the EPA will be implemented and the various ways in which they may take advantage of those provisions. The report said that the meeting had enabled the Caribbean private sector to discuss key issues surrounding their implementation of the EPA with officials from the European Union, European funding agencies and the EPA implementing bodies within Cariforum.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who addressed the Kingston forum, said Cariforum members ought to capitalise on the new opportunities that have been made available for the export of services from the region to Europe. He said opportunities for the export of services afforded the region a chance to capitalise on its intellectual assets through the development of its creative industries. Golding said the region had reached a point where its ability to grow economically was dependent on its capacity to export both goods and services outside of the region rather than “simply trading among ourselves”.
With both public and private sector postures towards the EPA being seemingly influenced by President Bharrat Jagdeo’s well-publicised opposition to the agreement in its present form, this newspaper understands that progress in preparations for the advent of the EPA evidenced elsewhere in the region is not matched here in Georgetown.
Stabroek Business has learnt that Guyana was not represented at the CAIC meeting in Jamaica for “logistical reasons” and that no local EPA unit comparable to that already established in Jamaica and in the process of being set up in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, is likely to materialise here quickly. However, an informed source told Stabroek Business that a public/private sector group tasked with similar functions is likely to be set up in due course.
A key area of concern during the discussion on services was that the current arrangements for securing the Schengen visa (which allows for free movement across borders among fifteen European and Scandinavian countries) might place regional service providers in a disadvantageous position compared to their European counterparts who have visa free access to the Caribbean.
Meanwhile the meeting’s deliberations on services also recommended the documentation of service exporting attempts, including barriers and other obstacles faced by regional service exporters. The outcome of the deliberations in Jamaica underscored the importance of the role of the regional private sector in the EPA implementation process. “As the undisputed engine of economic growth and the main actor in the field of trade the private sector in the region will need to become more actively involved in the monitoring of the EPA implementation process throughout the Cariforum area,” the report said.