More preferential market access to Cuba with signing of new trade protocol

Nov 10, 2017 News

Guyana is expected to benefit from more preferential market access to Cuba following the signing of a second Protocol to the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement signed yesterday between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba at the Marriott Hotel, Georgetown.

Secretary-General of CARICOM, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque (left) and Cuba’s Ambassador to Guyana, Julio Cesar Gonsalves Marchanta sign the Second Protocol to the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement between CARICOM and Cuba.

The agreement which was signed at the opening of the 45th Ministerial Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), marks a further deepening of the trade and economic relations between CARICOM and CUBA.
According to CARICOM, the agreement seeks to expand the preferential market access into each other’s market, but more importantly, should serve to instill in the CARICOM private sector in particular, an urgency to access the Cuban market.
The protocol offers expanded duty-free access to Cuba on a list of 326 items which include meat, fish, dairy produce, fruits and vegetables, beer, rum, cement, soaps and clothing.
There are approximately 50 items on which Cuba will grant immediate duty-free access and a list of 22 items on which differential treatment, including phased reduction of duty, which CARICOM More Developed Countries (MDCs) will grant to Cuba.
Products included in the duty free offer to Cuba are fish, pharmaceutical products, fertilizers, articles of iron and steel, electrical machinery and equipment.
Cuba and CARICOM signed the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement on July 5, 2000. That agreement provides for, among other things, the promotion and expansion of trade in goods and services through free access to the markets, elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade, the establishment of a system of rules of origin and the harmonization of technical and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures.
Both sides are being urged to pursue the new agreement in an expeditious manner which will position the companies and producers of the respective countries can take advantage of the opportunities which will emerge.
The agreement was signed by Secretary-General of CARICOM, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque and Cuba’s Ambassador to Guyana, Julio Cesar Gonsalves Marchanta.

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