Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
JAMAICAN BUSINESSES are being urged to involve themselves in CARICOM's upcoming international trade negotiations.
The Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) private sector outreach project is stepping up its operations in its second of four years, following a US$1 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).
CRNM Director Dr. Richard Bernal said its offices are housed inside JAMPRO's Trafalgar Road, New Kingston, headquarters. The CRNM will be holding an outreach event in Jamaica during May.
"The objective of the outreach work is to provide the private sector with information about upcoming negotiations, and to encourage them to submit their objectives and supporting information to enable us to more effectively represent them," Dr. Bernal told The Gleaner yesterday. "After all, it is firms that trade, not countries or governments."
GLOBAL COMPETITION
He stressed that, with small and medium-sized foreign companies already competing with similarly-sized locals in the Caribbean, nobody is insulated from the global market.
Dr. Bernal added that the CARICOM Single Market and Economy is not just about furthering regional integration but about enabling Caribbean countries to compete more effectively in the global market.
In the negotiations themselves the CRNM will involve members of private sector organisations, although not representatives of individual firms, to ensure impartiality. Aside from ongoing World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, of immediate significance will be February's Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) which is to be held with the European Union (EU), the world's largest trading bloc.
At EPA, Caribbean countries and the EU will be seeking increased market access to that continent. "CARICOM countries feel that they are really going to have to give us the edge in services after they have taken preferences and tariffs away," said Lincoln Price, CRNM private sector liaison officer.
