Leslie Miller, Minister of Trade and Industry, who will represent The Bahamas at this meeting along with a delegation of seven other representatives, voiced scepticism on the possibility of the deadline being met given the magnitude of disagreements between the 34 countries making up the proposed trading bloc.
“In my humble opinion I don’t see from talking to my counterparts in this hemisphere that the parameters of FTAA will be in effect by January 2005… It will not happen under the present apparatus that is proposed through FTAA.”
In an interview with The Guardian on Sunday, Mr. Miller predicted that instead of the FTAA agreement that is proposed, what this hemisphere will end up with will be multiple Free Trade Agreements (FTA) between the developed and developing countries in the hemisphere.
According to Mr. Miller, two major problems facing The Bahamas and CARICOM to be put forward at the meeting are procurement of government contracts and market access particularly in the area of agriculture.
Mr. Miller revealed that the United States government would like the right for its companies despite their size to compete equally for government and private sector contracts in the various countries throughout the hemisphere.
“When you take into consideration the large corporations that operate out of Florida alone, how do you expect the small construction conglomerates here in The Bahamas to compete on that scale,” said Mr. Miller.
He continued that these large companies have massive buying power and because of their size they have the ability to achieve of economies of scale, which translates into a serious situation for the smaller companies for developing countries such as The Bahamas.
Mr. Miller also noted that in the area of market access the United States must put agricultural subsidies on the table. The United States government presently provides it farmers with billions of dollars in subsidies. The refusal of the United States along with other countries in the European Union to negotiate on this issue led to the collapse in trade talks at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Cancun ministerial.
Minister Miller also challenged the broad definition of developing countries that has been applied equally to large economies such as Brazil and Venezuela and small island states such as The Bahamas and other Caricom nations.
“We are suppose to be on par with each other as developing countries, nothing could be further from the truth,” Mr. Miller said.
The Minister firmly stated that a redefinition is necessary as the broad definition that presently exist fuse together countries with differing economic scales.
The decision on where to locate the Secretariat for the FTAA will also be discussed at the Miami Ministerial. The deadline for all interested cities vying for the FTAA headquarters to submit their bid is Thursday.
So far nine countries namely Colorado Springs, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Puebla, Cancun, Panama City, and Port-of-Spain have indicated an interest in being selected as the site for the proposed secretariat.
The 14 Caricom nations have united in a bid for Port-of-Spain, Trinidad to be selected for the secretariat. Mr. Miller argued that having the headquarters situated in the United States would be grossly unfair as all the other major world organisations such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations are already headquartered in either Washington or New York City.
Mr. Miller challenged the United States that: “If you’re saying that you’re fair and you see you neighbours as equal, is it not time to allow this particular secretariat to be placed in one of the countries in the hemisphere instead of being dominated by the Americans again.”
According to Mr. Miller, despite the strong position presently held by Caricom in backing Port-of-Spain as the site for the secretariat, Miami would most likely win in the end as there was already rumours circulating among Caricom members that some countries were planning to bail out of the unified front at the last minute because of tremendous economic pressures being placed on them to back Miami as the preferred site.
The city chosen as the site for the headquarters of FTAA could see tremendous economic boom stemming from spin off businesses that will follow the secretariat, this is in addition to the prestige that would be invoked by housing the secretariat for the largest trading bloc in the world.
By Martella Matthews, The Nassau Guardian
