Latest update January 6th, 2025 4:00 AM
44th COTED meeting opens here today
– Regional Trade Ministers to review free movement of goods, services
– bitter end of EU’s sugar quota management on agenda
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Trade Ministers will today begin a two-day meeting at the
CARICOM Secretary General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque
Marriott Hotel to review the free movement of regional goods and services under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) initiative.
The 44th Ministerial Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) will also consider the progress of member states on the free movement of skills, and agriculture matters, with particular reference to trade in sugar.
The meeting is taking place at time when the region’s sugar, which has been a main economic driver for decades, is being threatened, due to the elimination of production quotas as part of the European Union’s sugar regime reform which became effective October 1.
CARICOM recognizes that the end of EU’s quota management for sugar is expected to lead to a fall in prices in relation to the international sugar price and a decrease in sugar imports from the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, with particular impact on Caribbean producers.
Trade Ministers are also expected to sign the Second Protocol to the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement between CARICOM and Cuba, allowing for increased reciprocal preferential market access.
According to the CARICOM Secretariat, in addition to the review of the CSME, the meeting will discuss a draft Public Procurement Protocol, police certificates of character, and the harmonisation of laws.
The Secretariat said that its successful legal and institutional measures and mechanisms include transforming regional arrangements into domestic law.
According to the Secretariat, there have also been agreements and arrangements to establish and operationalise various Community institutions, needed for the effective operation of the CSME. These include the Barbados-based CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), the CARICOM Competition Commission (CCC) headquartered in Suriname, the Barbados-based CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) in Barbados, and the Trinidad and Tobago-based Implementing Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS).
The CARICOM Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy, and recommendations from the CARICOM Inter-Agency Committee on Multi-Sectoral Action in member countries to prevent childhood obesity, will also engage the Ministers.
Also on the agenda is intra-regional trade in goods, particularly with respect to the Common External Tariff (CET) and the Rules of Origin.
As it relates to external relations, trade ministers will discuss future trade with the United Kingdom post-BREXIT; developments within the World Trade Organisation; and the state of the rum industry in CARIFORUM.
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