CANADA – Negotiations for a Trade and Development Agreement between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Canada are set to begin in early November. This was decided at a preparatory meeting between Ministers of both parties held on Friday in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
CARICOM Co-chairman of the session, Senator the Honourable Mariano Browne, Minister of Trade and Industry and Minister in the Ministry of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago said at a press conference following the meeting at the Trinidad Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre that the discussions were conducted in a positive spirit of co-operation and compromise.
Mr Browne is CARICOM’s lead Minister in the negotiations and also at the meeting were Senator the Honourable Maxine McClean, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados, the Honourable Michael Church, Minister of the Environment, Foreign Trade and Export Development of Grenada, Senator the Honourable Marlene Malahoo Forte, Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica and Senator the Honourable Joanne Massiah, Minister of State in the Ministry of Legal Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda. The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade and for Asia-Pacific Gateway represented Canada.
Minister Browne said the meeting had set the tone for the negotiations and was a great first step. He also alluded to the development dimension of the negotiations which he said should among other things aid in the development of the institutional capacity of the Region.
Mr Day said the conclusion of the agreement was important as both sides would be working together to provide opportunities for jobs and investment. The preparatory meeting, he said, had set a framework of principles from which the technical experts could fashion an agreement that would be of mutual benefit. He said that development must accompany trade.
Currently, trade and economic relations between CARICOM and Canada are covered under a number of instruments, including the 1979 CARICOM-Canada Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement and its Protocols, including the 1998 Protocol on Rum; CARIBCAN which grants unilateral duty free access to eligible goods from beneficiary countries in the English-speaking Caribbean up to 2011.
Two-way merchandise trade between CARICOM and Canada averaged more than $700 million (US) over the last ten years with a surplus averaging more than $60 million (US) in favour of the Region.
