By Lloyd Nicholas, ContributorMIAMI:
ONE Caribbean official is claiming that the travel industry has been sidelined in the upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade talks.
"What happens to tourism within the FTAA is a matter of considerable importance (but) tourism is only mentioned twice in the draft FTAA agreement - and I understand, it is mentioned in the footnote," said Jean Holder, secretary general of the Caribbean Hotel Association.
The regional tourism executive, in pointing out the importance of the November 20-21 FTAA negotiations in Miami to the Caribbean travel and tourism industry, noted that $20 billion in gross earnings is generated annually by the travel trade here and about one in four persons work within the industry.
TAKEN FOR GRANTED
"It is not unusual," he said, to not see tourism matters highlighted in trade or some other economic proposals "as in dealing with tourism, we take it (tourism) for granted."
But "we have to recognise at this time that we are extraordinarily challenged in this sector that we depend on so much a dependence which is exacerbated by what is happening to the other traditional trade sectors," Holder noted.
"We are now in a situation in which every country in the world has ventured into the tourism business and countries like the United States, European countries and Canada are very much in the tourism business and are major competitors to the Caribbean," he said.
"If we are to, therefore, maintain any level of competitiveness in this industry in which we have become so dependent, we must be clear in our negotiating positions with the FTAA about what protections we want."
Holder's comments at the public preparatory meeting organised by the CARICOM consuls-general in Miami, CARICOM ambassadors in Washington, D.C. and the Greater Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce during a one-day conference to invoke participation in the FTAA debates are among the topics to be discussed at the ATSDF November forum.
DEBATES
The Americas Trade and Sustainable Development Forum (ATSDF), will extend the debates outlined at the late September CARICOM ambassador's public discussion and will be held during the November 2003 meeting of the hemisphere's trade ministers in Miami.
The ATSDF will provide an opportunity for informal dialogue and substantive exchanges between civil society organisations and government officials working on the proposed FTAA negotiations.
But, notwithstanding all the talks and discussions, the 2005 start date for the FTAA initiative, that is intended to fuse an entire bloc of 34 countries and nearly 800 million people into a US$13 trillion market of free trade partners, may not be achieved.
It appears that the lack of consensus that undermined and inevitably led to the failure of talks at the recent World Trade Organisation ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, may again raise its head, said a report from Tradewatch, a publication of the Caribbean Export Development Agency.
This speculation comes following the recently-concluded meeting of the FTAA Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Vice-ministers from the 34 countries hoping to create the FTAA met from September 30 to October 3 but were unable to leave the meeting with significant progress in resolving contending positions.
