While Caribbean countries welcome the decision by the United Kingdom government earlier this year to amend the controversial Air Passenger Duty Bands, the retention of the travel tax albeit at a lower rate, remains a matter of concern to the Caribbean.
Delivering opening remarks at the Eighth UK-Caribbean Forum in London on Monday June 16, Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett told the forum that the retention of the tax “will continue to impact negatively on the region’s tourism industry” an industry which she said was the “economic mainstay of many of the Caribbean states.”
Caribbean governments and UK-based pressure groups representing Carib-bean interests have continually lobbied the United Kingdom administration and the British parliament to have the tax removed and Rodrigues-Birkett said that the downward adjustment of the tax is regarded by the Caribbean as a “first step in the right direction.”
The minister also used the opportunity of the forum to “signal” what she described as “the difficulties” being experienced by “business persons and artistes” in securing visas to travel to various European Union countries, including the UK, “in their efforts to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Economic Partner-ship Agreement (EPA) to undertake trade in goods and services. For some the situation has gotten worse since the signing of the EPA, she said.
Rodrigues-Birkett also bemoaned the fact that Caribbean students in the UK were experiencing difficulties in obtaining job training placements be-cause of what she described as “immigration impediments.” She told the forum that while Carib-bean people were more than willing to help themselves they were “hemmed in by obstacles of all sorts” in seeking to do so.
