CARICOM & EPA Negotiations

Caricom 'carry go bring come'
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Source: Jamaica Observer

Tomorrow, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) member states will assemble in Kingston to spend two days in a retreat on the conduct of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations. This is hard to believe.

The meeting is further evidence that the tradition of complacency about preparing for the future continues to be well-established in Caricom and appears to be in no danger of being replaced by a proactive approach towards inevitable economic change.

The resistance to facing reality is well illustrated by the inexcusable postponement of the restructuring of the sugar and banana industries. This delay has reduced the prospects for attaining international competitiveness and for orderly restructuring.

The recently completed EPA negotiations with the European Union is an opportunity to take a strategic approach to the future economic development of the region. Yet nothing, that we know of, has been done to plan the implementation of the EPA to allow the exporters of goods and services to seize the opportunities in a market of 450 million consumers.

Instead of focusing on implementation, Caricom is devoting time and scarce money to reviewing the structure and process of the EPA negotiations. This is not the best use of the tight human and financial resources of the region. The negotiations are over, and the structure and process of the negotiations, from the ministerial to the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), have produced an EPA. It is the most complex and comprehensive pact which the region has embarked upon. And it is the only one of its kind, as no other ACP region was able to complete one. The institutional arrangements which accomplished this cannot be all bad. The old adage is relevant: If it aint broke, don't fix it.

What is more important is for the governments of the region to move quickly to complete their national review and approval process. The Caricom Secretariat must produce a plan and schedule for implementation as Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding requested in early January. This should include consideration of the establishment of an EPA implementation unit similar to the CSME Unit, while the CRNM continues with the ongoing and planned negotiations, such as those with Canada.

We urge Caricom to dismiss any proposal that the function of external negotiations should be resumed by its secretariat, given the respective performances of the two institutions. It's no secret that the secretariat is less able to undertake external trade negotiations now than when it was necessary to create the CRNM over 10 years ago. Surely, memories cannot be that short.

Regrettably, while Caricom is fiddling, it is jeopardising the opportunity to commence the negotiations with Canada, which were first mooted seven years ago and revitalised by the joint Canada-Caricom decision during Prime Minister Harper's visit to Barbados last year.

It is understandable that the region could not start while it was fully absorbed in the EPA negotiations. But since mid-December, there has been no engagement with Canada. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic, Central America and the developing countries that compete with Caricom are clamouring to negotiate with Canada.

Enough of this Caricom 'carry go bring come'.

Barbados and CARICOM Integration

Barbados and the integration movement
Source: Stabroek
Wednesday, January 23rd 2008

As with elections in other countries of the Region, it is natural that the question should be asked as to whether, with the change of government in Barbados, there will be any change in the attitude of the new Democratic Labour Party administration to the regional integration movement.

Former Prime Minister Owen Arthur played a substantial role in bringing the Caricom Single Market and Economy to formal completion. He used his skills as a professional economist to ensure that progress was made steadily. And he utilized his own commitment to the necessity for a CSME to keep other governments on the path to keeping their own commitments to its implementation.

In periodic speeches throughout the Region, Mr Arthur constantly elaborated the rationale for hastening the implementation to a single market, emphasizing that the process of global economic liberalization would not wait for the Region to march to its own beat. Arthur well understood that timely adjustment to liberalization trends was a prerequisite to a beneficial adjustment to the free trade arrangements which the Region was being offered in the 1990's, whether that of the Free Trade Area of the Americas or the European Union's innovation of a Regional Economic Partnership Agreement to replace the Lome/Cotonou Conventions.

There is no doubt that the conclusion of Arthur's government, that Barbados would have to systematically embark on the path of creating a largely services economy, was the mainspring of his commitment to the rapid creation of a CSME. He clearly saw that in spite of the historic contribution of the sugar industry to the economy of Barbados, and indeed the economies of other countries, it would no longer play its traditional role. Therefore while recognizing short-term considerations, the emphasis in negotiating the REPA, for example, should not be, from a long term point of view, on maintaining the protection arrangements for sugar and other agricultural commodities, but on the services industries and other so-called "sunrise" (as against "sunset") industries.

In taking on the role of "lead Prime Minister" responsible for the implementation of the CSME, Arthur also forced an innovation in the Caricom institutional system, in decentralizing its operations from its Georgetown headquarters, through the creation of a special CSME office in Bridgetown. In that way he could have direct oversight of the process.

It was fortuitous too, that Arthur's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Billie Miller, took on a leading role in both the REPA negotiating process as well as in the negotiations towards the still unattained Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Arthur had inherited from the previous Democratic Labour Party government of Erskine Sandiford, the commitment to a focus, in the international sphere, on the need for special consideration of the needs and requirements of small states. The Barbados Declaration on Small Island States (SIDS) therefore provided Arthur with a base for operating as Chairperson of the special Commonwealth Secretariat/World Bank group in the second half of the 1990's, to advocate for the special requirements of Caribbean states in changing international attitudes to economic aid.
From that perspective, it seems unlikely that the new Democratic Labour Party government of Mr David Thompson, will veer much from these orientations. True, in recent times, there has been controversy in Barbados as to whether that country should accept the implications of the economic globalization process and accept foreign (in particular Trinidad and Tobago) acquisition of Barbadian commercial and financial operations.

Arthur seemed to stick to his guns in emphasizing that this was a necessary aspect of acceptance, not only of the inevitability of international liberalization, but of the logic of the CSME itself. At times recently, Thompson's DLP appeared to take a more protectionist view on this issue. But one suspects that as time goes on, the new Prime Minister will probably adopt what has seemed to be Arthur's view: that it is unwise to interfere too substantially in an economic process which appears to have a worldwide, rather than simply Barbadian, logic.
For it has seemed to be his view also, that in playing for a Barbadian private sector presence in the wider regional economic space that is projected to develop, one could not at the same time adopt a protectionist position in respect of the resources of the Barbadian economic space. (Barbadian economic interests, for example, have for some time had a substantial presence in some of the OECS countries).

The orientation of the DLP's electoral campaign seemed to concentrate more on local or domestic matters than on indicating its attitude to regional matters. The DLP seemed to spot that Arthur's Achilles heel lay in not appreciating popular anxieties on matters like housing and the rising cost of living. But oddly enough, last week the Inter American Development Bank announced a substantial loan to Barbados for housing. And in respect of the cost of living issue, Arthur seemed to take the view that in the context of an open economy like Barbados, there was a limit, again, to the kind of protectionist policies one could adopt. The hurried special Heads of Government consultation undertaken at the initiative of the Grenada Prime Minister, did not, in the circumstances, do much to assuage popular feelings. The domestic and international aspects of this problem are now on Thompson's plate.

In general, then, we expect that after a certain period spent on concentration on local arrangements, the new government will largely continue in the path set by Arthur's approach in the last nearly fifteen years.

The DLP inherits the pro-integration traditions of its founder Errol Barrow, one of the initiators of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA) process. Thompson will face the same issues as Arthur in respect of an appropriate approach to regional and global economic liberalization ;by an open economy. And we expect that his new Foreign Minister, Chris Sinkler, a leader in the Caribbean non-governmental organizations (NGO's) process advocating better conditions for the Caribbean in international trade, will carry that preoccupation with him into the making of government policy.

Barbados's leadership in the sphere of the special needs for small island developing states, is therefore likely to continue. And certainly as part of that, it is reasonable to expect that the emphasis on the creation of an effective regional economic space, as the base for playing in the international economic sphere, will also continue.

Commissioners of CARICOM Competiton Commision

Source: CARICOM Secretariat, Guyana

Jan. 22, 2008

Fireworks lit up the Paramaribo sky late on Friday afternoon, 18, January shortly after Dr. Kusha Haraksingh, a national of Trinidad and Tobago was sworn in as Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Competition Commission.

Dr Haraksingh and his six fellow Commissioners took the oath of office, administered by the Chairman of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, the Honourable Mr Justice Michael de la Bastide at the Commission’s headquarters in Paramaribo, Suriname. President of the Republic of Suriname His Excellency Drs Runaldo Venetiaan and CARICOM Secretary-General His Excellency Edwin Carrington were among a host of dignitaries who witnessed the swearing-in and participated in the ceremony marking the inauguration of the Commission.
Dr Haraksingh, an economist, historian and lawyer, is the Head of the Department of History, at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine campus. He holds a BA in History, an LLB from the University of London and a PhD in Economic History. Dr Haraksingh was the Lead Negotiator for Legal and Institutional Issues during the recently concluded negotiations between the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States (CARIFORUM) and the European Union for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). He is also the Lead Consultant, Sugar Association of the Caribbean and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of International Relations, UWI.

The other Commissioners are:
• Attorney-at-law, Patterson Keith Herman Cheltenham, QC of Barbados, who possesses extensive experience in Insurance, Administrative and Labour Laws as well as the Law of Trust. He has also had the benefit of specialised training in Taxation, Company Law and Insurance Law. Mr Cheltenham holds the Master of Laws and is a member of the Bars of Barbados, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

• Economist Dr. Trevor Michael Augustine Farrell of Trinidad and Tobago, who is also a business consultant and senior Lecturer in Economics at UWI, St Augustine. He holds a PhD in Economics and has more than 15 years experience as a consultant in various fields including agro-industry, airport management, banking, export development, public utilities, tourism, oil and gas and stock exchange operations.

• Mr. Hans Rudolf Lim A Po of Suriname, who is the Rector-Dean of the FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies. His expertise includes economics, law, competition policy and practice, management and governance. He holds the Master of Laws degree from the University of Leyden in the Netherlands, and has lectured in law at the University of Suriname. Mr Lim A Po’s majors were Civil and Corporate Law and Corporate Finance.

• Economist Dr Maureen Paul of Dominica who holds a PhD in Economics from Warwick University and a Postgraduate certificate in Competition Policy. She is an Economic Advisor to the UK Office of Fair Trading working on competition policy in the UK and European Union markets. Dr Paul focuses on applied micro and macro-economics and in particular applied micro econometrics. She also specialises in transfer pricing and has managed several global transfer pricing projects involving multiple countries.

• Attorney-at-law Dr Barton Umax Adolphus Scotland of Guyana is in private practice in the areas of National Resources and Investment Law, Negotiations and International Law. He holds a Master of Laws degree and a PhD in International Law. Dr Scotland is a member of the Bars of Guyana, Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis and England and Wales.

• Attorney-at-Law Ambassador A.B. Stewart Stephenson of Jamaica who is the General Manager of the Factories Corporation of Jamaica. His fields of expertise are finance, law, competition policy and practice and international trade. Ambassador Stephenson holds both a BSc degree in Management Studies and an LLB from the University of the West Indies, and has been both Jamaica’s Consul General to Toronto and Ambassador to Cuba. He has also lectured on Securities at the Jamaican Institute of Management.

The Commissioners are appointed for a period of five years and their appointments may be renewed for a further period of up to five years.

The Commission, a key Institution in support of the CARICOM Single Market (CSME) and Economy, was established by Article 171 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and is responsible for enforcement of the Community Rules of Competition which in the main prohibit agreements, decisions, and concerted parties whose objective or effect is to frustrate competition and abuse a dominant position in the market.

Its main functions within the CSME are to apply the rules of competition, promote and protect competition, co-ordinate the implementation of Competition Policy, monitor anti-competitive business conduct, promote establishment of national Competition Institutions and harmonisation of Competition Law as well as to advise the Council for Trade and Economic Development on Competition and Consumer Protection policies.

CONTACT; piu@caricom.org

Competition Commision Inaugurated

CCC to protect regional consumer and business interests
Published on Monday, January 21, 2008
Print Version

Source: Caribbean Net News Suriname

With an emphasis on consumer protection, fair trade and actions against anti-competition business conduct in the region, the CARICOM Competition Commission (CCC) was inaugurated in Suriname on Friday. The inauguration of the CCC marks a significant milestone on the road to fulfill the ambition of the region in creating a situation in which all the peoples of the Caribbean are able to enjoy the full benefits of the deepening of our integration movement, said Dr. Kusha Haraksingh, chairman of the newly established institution.

The headquarters of the CARICOM Competition Commission (CCC) which were inaugurated Friday in Paramaribo, Suriname.

According to Haraksingh, the region has been a crossover of various trading arrangements, where the benefits of “all these arrangements were not always indigenously claimed or locally enjoyed”. CARICOM, with the coming into being of the Single Market and Economy (CSME), will now embark on a trading regime where fairness stands at the center and where merit, efficiency and competitiveness will prevail.

Several officials who addressed the audience noted the importance of fair trade and proper business behaviour by companies in order for national economies and the region as a whole to realise welfare and economic growth. “Overall we aim to have more efficient and dynamic markets and stronger economies,” said Suriname's president, Dr Ronald Venetiaan.

The main objective of CARICOM’s competition policy is to ensure that the benefits expected from CSME are not marginalised by anti-competitive business conduct. Since the private sector has become increasingly important, said Venetiaan, governments in the region are doing their best to remove certain barriers and “other impediments to economic growth”.

However instruments are necessary to prevent or counter tendencies among businesses and enterprises such as cartels, price fixing, quantity limiting and bid rigging, Venetiaan warned. He also warned against abuse of dominant market position by established enterprises. “The CCC will ensure a level playing field for all players: big and small,” said the president. The commission further has to promote and sustain competition in the markets to ensure free trade and to protect the interests of consumers.

According to CARICOM secretary general Dr Edwin Carrington, the inauguration ceremony was a culmination of almost four years of planning, consultations and negotiations after Suriname in 2004 proposed to headquarter the CCC.

Envisioned as a vital institution within the CARICOM system, the CCC should particularly focus on “fostering efficiency in the market place” and also on education, active application of competition laws, dispute settlement among competitors and prevention of abuse of dominant positions by entrepreneurs. To perform these tasks, said Carrington, the Commission should therefore have powers to monitor the markets, initiate investigations and impose penalties if necessary.

The CCC will also contribute to the strengthening of national capabilities to develop due competition and consumer protection policies. “The future economic development of our community will be essentially market-driven and the CCC is not only necessary, but indispensable,” said the secretary general.

With Dr Haraksingh, Hans Lim A Po (Suriname), Patterson Keith Herman Cheltenham (Barbados), Trevor Michael Augustine Farrell (Trinidad and Tobago), Maureen Paul (Dominica), Barton Umax Adolphus Scotland (Guyana) and A. B. Stewart Stephenson (Jamaica) were sworn in as commissioners by Justice Michael de la Bastide, chairman of the Regional Judicial and Legal Service Commission and president of the Caribbean Court of Justice.

The Commission was established under Chapter Eight of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, including the Single Market and Economy, to promote economic efficiency, competition and protection of consumers.

Inauguration Ceremony CARICOM's Competition Commission

Source: CARICOM Secretariat, Guyana

Jan. 14, 2008

Plans are well advanced for the Inauguration Ceremony of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Competition Commission, including the swearing in of the Commissioners, which takes place on Friday 19 January 2008 in Paramaribo, Suriname. The gala ceremony will be aired live via television throughout the Community and high level representatives are expected from the Member States of the Community.

The Commission is an integral part of the operations of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and is established under Article 171 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community agreed at its 10th Special Meeting of the Conference in November 2004 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago that the headquarters of the Commission would be in Suriname.

The need for the Commission arose out of the discussions among the framers of the Revised Treaty about the need for a Competition Policy to help regulate the operations of the CSME. This was to prevent attempts at preserving positions in national markets by frustrating competition both by national and non-national competitors, which could diminish the benefits expected from liberalisation and integration.

In order to avoid such occurrences, Chapter Eight of the Revised Treaty was negotiated to promote economic efficiency, competition and protection of consumers. The provisions of the chapter prohibit agreements, decisions and concerted practices and the abuse of dominant positions which are incompatible with the CSME. Although the Treaty provides for public and private monopolies, these are subject to the Rules on Competition.

The body set out in the Revised Treaty for enforcement of the Community Competition Rules is the Competition Commission. The seven-member Commission is appointed by the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission which will also appoint a Chairman from among the seven Commissioners. Their term of office is five years which can be renewed for a further period of not more than five years. Commissioners should, among other things, have expertise in commerce, finance, economics, law, competition policy and practice, international trade.

Translation of Official CARIFORUM Documents ( CRITI)

Source: CARICOM Secretariat, Guyana

Jan. 14, 2008

Caricom.org

The Caribbean Regional Information and Translation Institute (CRITI) will be launched in Suriname on Thursday 17 January 2008.

At the launch, the President of Suriname, His Excellency Runaaldo Venetiaan and the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Forum of ACP States (CARIFORUM), His Excellency Edwin Carrington will sign an Headquarters Agreement. The President and the Secretary-General are also expected to unveil a plaque on the premises to be used for the headquarters of the Institute in Paramaribo.

In July 2005, the CARIFORUM Council of Ministers agreed to establish and locate CRITI in Suriname. CRITI will translate official documents and provide information for the CARIFORUM Member States, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States and the CARICOM Secretariat, other Regional Organisations and the private sector. CARIFORUM consists of the Member States of CARICOM plus the Dominican Republic and in its operations uses the official languages of all its Member States, English, French, Spanish and Dutch. Translation will, therefore, be provided into and out of these languages.

CRITI will facilitate official intra-CARIFORUM and intra-CARICOM communications at political and technical levels in the four (4) official languages of CARIFORUM. It will make the institutions of CARIFORUM and CARICOM, including the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), more accessible to all citizens of CARICOM regardless of language through the provision of translation services. It will bring the institutions, organisations and official proceedings of the region closer to its citizens by providing records of deliberations and decisions in their respective native languages.

This Institute is being established at a time when trade expansion and the movement of capital and services will require information and translation services to be provided to the private sector to facilitate trade, commerce and investments.

CRITI will also offer a translation and information service to professional bodies, and the general public on a cost recovery basis as part of its long term sustainability strategy.

Source: caricom.org

Together WI Swims

Together WI swims, divided it sinks -Imperative to find a structure for regional governance in the Caribbean

By:Andy Johnson
Source: Trinidad Express
Sunday, December 9th 2007

GIVEN the length of time already spent on the consideration of regional governance in the caribbean, it is recommended that a decision on the subject be adopted with a sense of urgency. This is how a report prepared by a group called the Technical Working Group, dealing with the issue of Regional Governance in the Caribbean Community was concluded.

It was the first sentence in the final paragraph of the report dated October, 2006. It articulated the position further, to state that this sense of urgency was "especially so in the context of achieving the objectives envisaged in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which remain central to the survival and prosperity of the region."

With Caricom leaders hurriedly meeting in the Guyanese capital, Georgetown this weekend against the urgency of the suffocating spirals in the cost of living of people from the Bahamas to Suriname, this issue of speeded up forms of governance comes back centre stage again.

Even as the region's leaders keep being propelled from one apparent or real crisis to the other, the question of what the Technical Working Group calls "Managing Mature Regionalism" keeps being deferred again and again.

"Options for Governance", is what this imperative got referred to as, after it was determined not to refer to it by any nomenclature that would, once again, raise the fears of governments and peoples in countries such as The Bahamas and Jamaica over anything that closely resembles "federation". When the matter came up again some five years ago at an intersessional meeting of Caricom heads in Port of Spain, it came out as "closer political union".

Following a flurry of meetings in the months immediately afterwards, the process was put in the hands of this Technical Working Group, with the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, holding lead responsibility for it. Former prime minister of St Lucia, Dr Vaughan Lewis, is chairman of the TWG. He has been for the last five years, a senior fellow at the Institute of International Affairs at the UWI, St Augustine.

"History and geography pre-dispose our nation states to combine," Dr Gonsalves told the Caricom summit in St Kitts in July 2006, three months before the completion of the report of the TWG. The leaders, he said, were "called to be apostles of a deeper, more perfect Caribbean union." There were harsh and compelling contemporary realities, he said, which were resident in the region's social economy, and their "unequal and constricting yoke to the international political economy, produce circumstances which induce us to a deeper, more profound integration."

The Georgetown summit, over a single day, was rushed on the basis of an alarm raised by the Prime Minister of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique, Dr Keith Mitchell, over the impact of the rising cost of living of the region's peoples.

It came virtual days after a declaration by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago who, taking another oath of office two days after the last elections, said this devil called the cost of living was going to be a priority item for his new administration. It is also looks like being the primary issue number one in next year's Barbados elections.

And when they met in Georgetown two days ago, it would have been the second time the leaders would have got together on a matter of critical regional importance, since the regular annual summit in July. They would have met also for one day in Port of Spain in early September for the health summit following a damning report produced by another team of regional experts. It concerned an epidemic in non-communicable diseases, such as stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

They are scheduled to meet again in the regular inter-sessional, in February or early March. Quite apart from, but essential to the urgent action required in addressing the health epidemic across the region is what the Commission on Health and Human Development said was the need for conclusion of the years of discussion on implementing a regional Health Insurance Scheme.

This has significant implications as part of the social infrastructure which must be put in place to supplement effective working of the Caricom Single Market and Economy, which itself has freedom of movement for workers and their families as its cornerstone. Arrangements for the E in the CSME to be put into effect, were scheduled to be completed sometime in the coming year.

No likelihood existed last week that there was going to be any discussion on this in Georgetown, or on an update from the September health summit, or even on the structural imperatives recommended by the TWG on the umbrella issue of "Managing Mature Regionalism".

As part of its conclusion, now under consideration for almost 14 months, the TWG report said that "the Caribbean stands at a critical juncture in its evolution which compels it to adopt a creative, yet pragmatic, system of regional governance." Such a system, it said, "must be capable of supporting the wide-ranging process of economic integration as envisaged in the CSME. At the same time, it must respond to global challenges impinging on prospects for national and regional development

"The decisions taken today in respect of the structure of governance therefore assume critical importance in determining the capacity of the region to deal with the plethora of multi-faceted challenges it will continue to face."

Such challenges indeed can be found in the means by which the region has been seeking to address the impact of regional economies of the so-named "Economic Partnership Agreements" governing international trade in the aftermath of the Lome Conventions, and the Cotonou Agreement and the Doha Round, which were both temporary replacements.