Trade and Industry Minister Leslie Miller told the Bahama Journal this week that this reality comes as the ninth FTAA ministerial meeting is scheduled to be held in Brazil this year and there are only 12 months left to conclude negotiations.
Mr. Miller noted a shift in FTAA negotiations, which he said further proved the challenges of completing talks in a year.
“[The 8th FTAA ministerial meeting in Miami] brought out clearly the fact that, as indicated by US Trade Representative Robert Zoelick, it is highly unlikely that the FTAA would come into effect in 2005,” Minister Miller said.
“Realising that there was not going to be broad consensus at that conference with regard to the implementation of the FTAA on that timeframe, the United States decided to do individual FTAA agreements.”
Mr. Miller also cited recent hemispheric trade developments, most notably the signing of an agreement to establish a free trade area among a number of South American countries.
From December 2002, those South American countries signed an Economic Complementarity Agreement in Brasilia reiterating their decision to form a free trade area.
The trade bloc will be established by means of tariff reductions and the removal of restrictions and other obstacles to their reciprocal trade, with a view to its expansion and diversification, an Andean Community General Secretariat website explained.
Minister Miller, meanwhile, said the number of bilateral free trade agreements being negotiated could significantly undermine efforts to establish a free trade bloc among 34 major countries of this hemisphere.
“Canada posed the question at the Miami summit that the concept of the FTAA was driven by the United States government, but the US is now signing individual FTAA accords with countries in this same hemisphere of the Americas,” Minister Miller said.
“[The United States] is diluting the process of having an overall FTAA if they’re going to sign individual FTAAs.”
Noting the degree of detail involved in FTAA negotiations, the Trade Minister anticipates that the complexity of the talks would present another obstacle to concluding the agreement.
“Despite what all these so-called experts on the FTAA have to say, there is no document that one can sit down and disseminate to the people of this country as to what all the trade proposal entails,” Mr. Miller pointed out.
“Do you know how difficult it is to have 34 countries decide on an agreement, to have those 34 countries’ Cabinets decide on the same document, to have those 34 countries’ Parliament’s decide on the document and then disseminate that to their people?”
He added, “The process is ongoing and 2005 is out of the question for the FTAA.”
Noting that there is strength in numbers, Mr. Miller said the way forward for The Bahamas in determining its eventual role in the FTAA is to negotiate in the strength of alliances.
“As far as The Bahamas is concerned, we have aligned ourselves, rightfully so, with our CARICOM brothers and we will go in to the FTAA as a unit if and when we reach that threshold, but we haven’t arrived at that yet,” he said.
“There’s no need for us to fear or panic about what this process is all about,” Mr. Miller added. “What is in the best interest of the Bahamian people is what Prime Minister Perry Christie and the Cabinet will decide on if and when that time comes.”
Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
