World Trade Organisation Director General Pascal Lamy is expected to give his 'outlook' on the Doha negotiating round during his meetings in Jamaica. - Reuters

Lavern Clarke, Business Editor

Pascal Lamy's visit to Kingston, trade sources say, will boost Jamaica's profile but otherwise there is little expectation that today's dialogue will advance the region's cause within the corridors of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In fact, sources close to the discussions say Lamy, while here, is expected, to do 'a lot of listening' to private sector companies and regional trade ministers and their technocrats but that the discussions are unlikely to end in any decisions, conditional or otherwise, nor is he expected to promise any trade interventions.

For Caricom, the 24-hour visit offers the chance for uninterrupted audience with the WTO director general on issues peculiar to the region, such as the challenge by Antigua to the United States policy on online gaming.

And, Dr. Marshall Hall, the outgoing head of banana exporter Jamaica Producers Group, as well as ministers from banana-dependent economies, will want to have Lamy's take on the likely success of the new banana challenge by Ecuador.

The Latin American producer, backed by its neighbours, has mounted a new lobby for further reform of the EU quota-based trading regime agreed and implemented last year.

"This meeting has great value. Lamy is in nearly all the significant meetings with all key players," said a top trade expert on the eve of the talks.

SOMETHING WILL STICK

"There is no guarantee of a buy-in to our agenda, but we will articulate our case when we meet with him. Something is going to stick."

Those meetings began last night with dinner and continue today with a morning meeting at the Jamaica Pegasus.

Ambassador Richard Bernal, trade negotiator and director general of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, said Wednesday he expects that Lamy, in private talks with the trade ministers, will brief them on the prospects for restarting the stalled Doha Development Round.

"He's going to give his view of where the process is," said Bernal. "He'll give an analysis of what the hold up is."

Essentially, what Caricom anticipates from the Lamy meeting is some of the more intimate 'details' of the compromises, if any, being struck between the big traders on subsidies and the odds that the concessions will bring the parties back to the table in Geneva.

One such meeting between the U.S., the EU, India and Brazil was scheduled for New Delhi yesterday in New Delhi, but even before the talks, there was media speculation that little would come of it.

In fact, the tone of the more recent speeches and comments by Lamy suggests that even he believes that there is little hope of reviving Doha in a year when the subsidy-dependent French go to the polls (April 22) to elect a new president, and with Democratic-led U.S. Congress giving reign to its globalisation phobias.

RECIPROCATING THE EU OFFER

Bernal was not prepared to comment, saying only: "He'll tell us his outlook."

From the talks with Lamy, the trade ministers will swing into another meeting to dissect the offer made last week by the European Union to eliminate tariffs on all goods it buys from African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, starting January 1, 2008.

Bernal says the CARIFORUM talks - Caricom plus Dominican Republic - will:

Consider the counter-offer to be made to Europe to 'reciprocate' for last week's gesture;

Refine the rules of origin the region wants applied to the trade pact; and

Agree the 'special products' for which protection and 'trade-in-aid' concessions will be negotiated.

Under the European Partnership Agreement, 'reciprocal' requires only a 90 per cent opening up of markets by ACP countries, but the challenge for negotiators, according to Bernal, is whether to apply the definition to the value of the goods being traded or the tariff.

Trade between the EU and ACP can only be defined as marginal, at least from Europeans' perspective, accounting for ?€54.9 million, or under 2.8 per cent, of world transactions by the developed bloc in 2004 - the EU sold ?€26.5 million of products to the ACP, and bought ?€28.4 million's worth.

The offer to eliminate tariffs is therefore unlikely to have any significant cost impact on the EU, said a local trade expert, and may well be less expensive than administering preferential or quota-based systems.

"We're a small market to them," he said. "It's good politics."

It's that type of forward thinking and compromise that eludes regional politicians, Financial Gleaner sources say on condition ofnot being associated with the remarks.

Not only are the region's finance ministers resisting some of the deals being negotiated with the Europeans, but governments are timid to open market access to certain sectors, even when they stand to lose little.

The EU offer would have virtually wrapped up negotiations on goods, but services have just got to round one. Not only is the EU seen as overly protective of that segment of its large economy, but here in the region there are whispers that governments are similarly reluctant to give ground even on areas in which market access is unlikely to hurt the Caribbean.

"The CARIFORUM services offer needs to be more ambitious," said a regional expert.

"Trade liberalisation is also about trade-offs if it's to act as a developmental tool."

Bernal redirected queries of political friction to Foreign Minister Anthony Hylton and his Caricom colleagues, but did concede there were concerns by regional keepers of the treasury about the fiscal fallout from the duties they will have to give up.

"They see it as revenue lost," the ambassador said.

lavern.clarke@gleanerjm.com