Christ Church, Barbados – Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of Hong Kong, China Mr. John Tsang will be in the Caribbean during the first week of November.
Secretary Tsang is expected to visit Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica, in his capacity as Chairperson of the Sixth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference, to be held in Hong Kong from December 13 to 18.
He is slated to meet with Barbados’ Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Dame Billie Miller, Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation Hon. Clement Rohee, and Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Hon. K.D. Knight, to exchange views on the year-end Ministerial. The encounters will also provide an opportunity for discussion of the status of WTO Doha Round talks, ahead of this decisive Ministerial.
Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) Ambassador Dr. Richard Bernal characterized the upcoming meetings as “an important opportunity for these key Caribbean Trade Ministers to reiterate the priority issues of the Region in global trade talks, in the lead up to the crucial yearend WTO Ministerial.”
There is mounting concern in the Caribbean that as the principal players attempt to settle differences centered on resolution of the core or gateway issues, development issues continue to remain on the back-burner, treated as an annex in Doha Round talks.
As the key Caribbean Trade Ministers are poised to meet with Secretary Tsang, prospects for global trade talks are bleak. Agriculture talks have stalled, with diminished hopes for a breakthrough in the coming days. Rifts remain amongst principal players on concessions for protective practices in the area of Agriculture.
A cut-off point of ten-days from last Friday, October 21 was handed down by the Chair of WTO Agriculture talks within which farm trade talks must be revived, or risk collapse.
This latest impasse in Agriculture talks was further complicated, with reports that a meeting previously set in Geneva at which the European Union was expected to advance a new offer in the area of agricultural market access had been cancelled, pending completion of an EU heads of state meeting held on October 27.
Without urgent action in farm trade talks, which have taken centre-stage in the Doha Round, there is a fear the Round could be derailed.
Dame Billie Miller was elected by the WTO General Council in July as a Vice-Chair in the bureau of the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting.
