Dionne Rose, Business Writer

With the deadline looming for a new trade pact between the Caribbean and the Euopean Union (EU), the region's lead negotiator, Ambassador Richard Bernal, says an agreement could be concluded as early as this weekend.

The parties have called a negotiating session in the hope of finding a settlement before year end when a current WTO waiver allowing Europe to provide preferential trade terms to its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific expires, and Bernal told the Financial Gleaner: "I am going there to do what I am told to do, which is to get an agreement, which meets what the heads want and to get it done so that we don't have to go on GSP (generalised system of preferences)."

Issues stalled

The negotiations on a so-called Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom), plus the Dominican Republic, has stalled on the issue on how quickly Caribbean countries should open to markets to exports from Europe. But faced with the imment expiration of the WTO waiver and the possibility that the region could be forced to operate under regular global trade disciplines, regional leaders apparently made concessions at a meeting last weekend in Guyana.

"On the EPA, they took two types of decisions," said Richard Bernal, who heads the Regional Negotiating Machinery. "They made some adjustments to our market access, which relates to how much we will liberalise and over what period."

" Because they have made that adjustment, we shouldn't have any problems with the EU settling on market access," he said.

The EU is demanding that Caribbean countries free market access to at least 80 per cent of goods sold to the region by its 27-member bloc and full liberalisation of the other 20 per cent over two or so decades.

"We are there for the first time," said Bernal as it relates to the EU demands. "It is not about the EU forcing us to do this, it is by convention in the WTO (World Trade Organisation) these agree-ment usually involve. They usually involve 90 per cent liberalisation."

Earlier this week, Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding was similarly optimistic that an agreement could be reached with the Europeans before year end. He had warned that the absence of an agreement could mean an additional $5.1 billion on the bills of Jamaica's exporters in the form of tariffs.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com