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EU meets Guyana on trade agreement…Euros 170M in goods exported to Europe in 2010
The European Union (EU) has started local consultations with local players on a major trade agreement.
A review of the EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is set to take place next year, Head of Delegation of the EU in Guyana, Ambassador Robert Kopecký, disclosed during a meeting yesterday with the Private Sector Commission, the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Guyana Office of Investment at the EU Delegation premises on Croal Street.
EU officials meeting with private sector and other stakeholders yesterday to discuss a critical trade agreement.
In his remarks, the Ambassador stressed that it was important to have open and frank discussions on the EPA with the members of the productive and services sectors, as Guyana stands to benefit from the agreement given its vast diversity of resources. This was especially in the agriculture, forestry, mining and fisheries sectors.
“The Head of Delegation announced that the dialogue with the private sector representatives will be intensified in future, not least in preparation of the upcoming EPA review due to take place in 2013,” the EU said in a statement yesterday.
Also in the three-member team from the EU was Alex Walford, Directorate-General for Trade which is responsible for the trade relations with the Caribbean region. He has spent this week in Guyana in intense meetings with stakeholders to chart the way forward in the implementation of the EU-CARIFORUM EPA.
EU said that the meetings are to “ensure that Guyana’s business sector maximises the benefits of the EPA. The meetings, which included a series of dialogues involving the key stakeholders throughout the various sectors, including the Implementation Unit based at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown…”
The efforts have been undertaken with the common objective to boost Guyanese –European trade relations hit by the world financial crises a few years ago.
“The last available statistics indicate that in 2010, Guyana exported to the EU goods worth 170 million Euros, whilst its imports from the EU were 89 million Euros, thus creating a positive trade balance in Guyanese favour of 81 million Euros.”
The figures meant that the EU maintains to be the third most important trade partner of Guyana after Canada and the USA.
“Main items of Guyanese exports to the EU are sugar and its derivates, rice, bauxite, rum, processed timber, diamonds and sea food, whilst Guyana imports from the EU above all, machinery and mechanical appliances, dairy and some other agricultural products and medicaments.”
Guyana was the first country to have complied with putting the necessary EPA related tariff reductions in place.
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