BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC:
THE DIRECTOR-General of the Barbados-based Regional Caribbean Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Richard Bernal, says he is not so optimistic that the much-touted Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will become a reality soon.
He described the FTAA, which is being negotiated by 34 countries of the Americas and intended to be the most far-reaching trade agreement in history, as being "most definitely on life support".
"I am not sure what the future holds for the FTAA," Bernal said in an interview with "Trade Beat" the official organ of the CRNM.
Trinidad and Tobago has been pushing to become the headquarters of the FTAA and Bernal said no consensus had been reached at the recent Summit of the Americas held in Argentina on continuing the negotiations to form the FTAA.
"I believe however there is a strong interest outside of the MERCUSOR (countries) and Venezuela in having some sort of hemispheric trade arrangement. We will see early in the new year if these countries can get together," he added.
PREPARED FOR TALKS
The MERCUSOR grouping consists of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, and in recent time, Cuba, which is not part of the FTAA negotiations have joined Venezuela in seeking to establish closer relations with the grouping.
Bernal said that the Caribbean did "everything possible to keep the FTAA alive" adding "as an option we also have worked on the preliminary stages in terms of information exchanges between MERCUSOR and CARICOM (Caribbean Community)".
Bernal said that the region was also now prepared to hold talks with Canada on an enhanced CARICOM - CARIBCAN trade agreement. He said the talks would begin "once the Canadian elections are over and things settle down there".
He also disclosed that "substantial progress" had been made on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with Europe, describing as "constructive" the negotiations that had encountered initial problems.
"Yes there are differences, but we believe that we could work it out and we are pursing that in the first quarter of the New Year," he said.
