SUNS  4338 Friday 4 December 1998



CARIBBEAN: PROPOSED TRADE AGREEMENT HITS A SNAG

Georgetown, Dec 2 (IPS/Bert Wilkinson) -- A free trade agreement between the Dominican Republic and its English-speaking Caribbean neighbours would be more beneficial to the Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries, some have argued.

After all, the English-speaking Caribbean countries and Haiti together have a population of fewer than 14 million people while the Dominican Republic (DR) has a population of 7.5 million.

The DR is the United States' main trading partner in the region, buying most of U.S. exports to the Caribbean.

Caricom leaders have therefore been pushing for a formal trading arrangement with the Spanish-speaking country.

But at a recent meeting in Trinidad and Tobago signs that the agreement could be in trouble became clearer as officials were unable to agree on the list of items that should be granted preferential treatment.

The Free Trade Agreement signed during a summit of Caribbean leaders and Cuba in Santo Domingo last August, was supposed to have commenced operations come Jan. 1, but officials on both sides are admitting the confusion will mean this is now hardly likely to be the case.

"Unless something happens between now and then, meaning January, then the whole thing is suspended. The start up date will be pushed back," says Caricom spokesman Leonard Robertson.

The Caricom countries had walked with a list of more than 230 agricultural and manufactured items they wanted to be given preferential treatment, including reduced duties.

The DR delegation on the other hand, came to the table with a mere 22 items. Officials say that while the DR appeared anxious for the talks to move ahead, the English-speaking nations are to be blamed for not agreeing among themselves as to what should be on the list and what should be excluded.

"We did meet before and discuss this thing, but when one private sector team asked that items be deleted or included, the customs from that same country demanded that it be put back and so we couldn't agree among ourselves in the first place.

"The DR delegation said they had no basis for continuing the discussions and that's where we are today," says one source who attended the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The smaller Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) appears to be the sub region that pushed for the long, and what some trade representatives who attended the meeting call an unreasonably long list of items for preferential treatment.

This is primarily to protect their own markets. The OECS group has also asked for special treatment in current U.S-led negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) scheduled to come on stream by 2005.

Prime Minister Lester Bird of Antigua and Barbuda has argued that the smaller island states should be treated as a special sub region, not only unable to compete with the larger economies, but also being prone to annual natural disasters like hurricanes and in some cases volcanoes. "We need to be treated as a special group, with a phasing in period to allow us to get our house in order," says Bird.

The breakdown of talks with the DR has come just days after Cuba sent a high-powered delegation to Georgetown to review trade and other relations with Caricom.

That Spanish-speaking country has been knocking on the door of Caricom, gradually trying to persuade officials to begin talks that would lead to an agreement similar to what is being proposed with the DR.

It has already had some success in its bid to establish closer links with the region and now enjoys observer status at some conferences and has even been invited to annual heads of government meetings.

In the last four years Cuba has been making a serious pitch to be included in the Lome scheme which gives participating nations preferential treatment for key products entering the European market from the African, Caribbean and Pacific states. On this it has the support of the English-speaking Caribbean.

Meanwhile, in the last decade, the Caribbean has signed agreements with Venezuela and Colombia, with varying degrees of success. Guyana for example, has broken into the Colombian rice market, while Venezuelan goods, including petroleum products have been exported to some
Caribbean countries.

Beer and cement are two of the items which leaders say would do well in the Dominican Republic and would significantly increase the trade bill between the two parties which now stands at less than $1 million a year.