Government Information Service

by Emmanuel H. Joseph
Government Information Service

Head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, Ambassador Henry Gill, is currently Dominica in holding discussions with Government and key stakeholders on positioning the country to maximise benefits under the Economic Partnership Agreement, the EPA.

On October, 15th, 2008, Dominica’s Trade Minister, Senator Collin Mc Intyre, signed on to the EPA at a special ceremony in Barbados. The agreement constitutes a development support agenda aimed at helping the member states of CARIFORUM face the challenges of development and to further the process of regional integration.

The Caribbean Regional Machinery played a lead role in the negotiations of the EPA. According to Ambassador Gill, the focus now is on putting the necessary machinery in place for implementing the agreement.

“The region, having signed the agreement, is now turning its attention to the implementation of this agreement. That in itself is a massive task; a task that will continue for a number of years. One of the things that the negotiators sought to do in the agreement is stagger undertakings so that you are not faced with a flood of obligations that you have to deal with from day one.

Those obligations will be put into effect in accordance with the agreement years down the line at various stages; not that there are not things that we must be doing right now. One of the things we have to do right now is to organise ourselves individually as countries and collectively as a region and work together at levels, the individual level and the regional level, to move the process forward. For that to happen, there must be a very clear time table; clear sequencing of activities to be done from now till year ten, let us say, and national implementation bodies must be set up and be functioning, otherwise, we will not be able to reap the clear benefits this agreement has to offer.”

Ambassador Gill said that the task of dissemination and education about the Economic Partnership Agreement is critical, hence this meeting in Dominica.

“There is still a tremendous amount or tremendous need for explanations of the provisions of the agreement. This agreement is about two thousand (2 000) pages when you lay it out in terms of all the schedules, joint declarations and its various parts. It is technically very complex. Therefore, to distil what is in there, it s not an easy undertaking. It is very clear to us that many things in there are not understood, or if it is, people feel that they understand it but they do not understand clearly the implications. As a result, the task of dissemination and education, if you want, is going to be an ongoing one for some time to come and in that process, greater clarity will be had as to precisely how you go about implementing and reaping the benefits that is in this agreement. This is what we want to be doing here in Dominica for the two days.”

A discussion on the EPA is planned for Tuesday 20th January on KAIRI F.M. Radio. This discussion is aimed at sensitising the public on the provisions and anticipated benefits of the EPA the discussion will be hosted by Reginald Severin. The guests will include Ambassador Henry Gill and Director of Trade, Mr. Eisenhower Douglas.