| KINGSTON, May 27 (JIS): |
 Foreign
Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister, K.D. Knight has said that although
no decision had been reached at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
Ministerial Conference in Cancun last year, he was encouraged by the
unity and preparedness of the various groupings of developing countries.Making his contribution to the 2004/05 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House on Tuesday (May 25), Mr. Knight stressed that the meeting was not simply about arriving at an agreement, but one which reflected the interests of the Caribbean. Following Cancun, the WTO negotiations went into a period of hiatus. However, Mr. Knight informed, efforts were being made by the European Union (EU), the United States and the G-19 group, of which Jamaica is a part, to get the negotiations back on track. He further noted that agriculture remained a very sensitive issue and that the primary negotiations surrounding this sector concerned the treatment of the reduction of subsidies applied in the European Union, Japan, the United States and other developed countries. “One of the things we have to ensure with the agricultural sector is that we protect our small farmers. There is no possible way that simply to advance trade liberalization we are going to sacrifice the farmers,” the Minister stated. Minister Knight said the treatment of development issues, which include special and differential treatment, was also of primary concern and that since Cancun, these issues had been de-emphasized. Jamaica joined other developing countries in tabling a paper in the WTO “making clear that the development issues remain a priority and that there can be no progress in the negotiations without positive action to address these issues,” he stated. Turning to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Mr. Knight informed that the negotiations had stalled since the 8th Ministerial meeting in 2003 and that in order to address the impasse, Ministers had agreed to a new vision of the FTAA in the Miami Declaration, which proposed a two-tiered approach for the negotiations: a first or common tier that would form the free trade agreement, and a second plurilateral tier, that would comprise agreements in certain areas entered into by interested countries on a voluntary basis. “The scaling down of the FTAA negotiations is welcomed by CARICOM which had, for some time, been calling for either a reduction in the scope of the negotiations or an extended time frame,” he told the House. Mr. Knight said CARICOM had also been negotiating these bilateral agreements with several countries in the region as, “we cannot be left behind”. The Foreign Affairs Minister informed that following the formal launch of the European Commission (EC)/Caribbean (Economic Partnership Agreement) EPA in Jamaica last month, negotiations were to take place in four phases, moving to market access negotiations in September 2005. “Essentially, CARICOM is insisting that development be at the centre of these economic partnership agreements”. In the meantime, through an inter-ministerial consultative committee, government was ensuring that Jamaica was able to honour its commitment to implement the CSME a year ahead of the agreed time of December 2005, Mr. Knight said. “Despite its inherent challenges, the CSME offers the best vehicle for Jamaica and by extension CARICOM to cope with the reality of a truly globalised economy…I therefore do not support the view that the process of CSME implementation could be regarded as a wayward journey,” he declared. |
