The Bahamas’ absence from a critical Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) meeting last week in Barbados may have further delayed the private sector’s access to more than $165 million in benefits, charged a local trade economist last week.
Hank Ferguson asserts that the country’s lack of attendance at the first meeting of the CARIFORUM-EU Trade and Development Committee in June may mean the private sector could be hampered further from the support provided in the EPA for business development.
“If I was a private sector person interested in getting benefits from the $165 million set aside for us, I would be upset that the country did not make representation on my behalf,” he told Guardian Business. “But we did not attend the meeting in Barbados [and] The Bahamas was supposed to submit our services offer then. The actual document is the Market Access Commitment on Services and Investment for inclusion into the actual EPA Agreement.
Guardian Business understands the nation’s lack of senior representation at that meeting disappointed many of the key people involved in the process at the CARIFORUM level. Guardian Business reported earlier how officials at the EPA Implementation Unit were waiting on the government to articulate exactly what particular benefits it needs to get out of the agreement.
The EPA creates a free trade area between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).
The Bahamas signed the EPA agreement as a part of the CARIFORUM sub-group within the ACP on October 15, 2008, however Article 63 of that agreement allowed The Bahamas and Haiti to have their commitments on services and investment incorporated into the EPA following a decision of the CARIFORUM-EC Trade and Development Committee. Negotiations related to services were completed on January 25, 2010.
