CARICOM and Cuba reach agreement to expand market access preferences

Alicia Nicholls

It has been a while in coming but today the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat announced in a press release that CARICOM and Cuba have finally agreed to expand the level of preferential access to each other’s markets as part of efforts to update the Cuba-CARICOM Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement.

According to the Press Release, CARICOM and Cuba reached agreement at the end of the Tenth Meeting of the CARICOM-Cuba Joint Commission established pursuant to the trade and economic cooperation agreement. This meeting took place between January 30-31, 2017 at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana.

The Press release notes the following outcomes agreed to:

• Duty-free entry for a number of CARICOM agricultural products and manufactured goods, such as beer and fish into the Cuban market
• Duty-free access for Cuban goods, including pharmaceuticals, into the markets of CARICOM member states
• More Developed Countries (MDCs) of CARICOM (Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago) will also determine the level of preference they will grant to Cuba on a number of other items.

The release also notes that exploratory discussions were held on trade in services and there has been agreement to continue the exchange of information and cooperation on services trade, particularly tourism.

The Cuba-CARICOM Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement is a reciprocal trade agreement between Cuba and thirteen member states of CARICOM. Bahamas and Haiti were not part of the negotiations. The agreement was signed in Canouan,  St. Vincent & the Grenadines. According to a Jamaican Gleaner article from July 2016, negotiations on updating the Cuba-CARICOM Agreement began in 2006 but have been protracted.

It is a partial scope agreement as it mainly covers goods trade. However, the agreement contemplates expansion towards to a full free trade agreement and has a built-in work plan which includes working towards the adoption of double taxation agreements between CARICOM member states and Cuba, to commence services  trade negotiations, to adopt an agreement on intellectual property rights, to negotiate an agreement for the protection and promotion of investment, among other things. On the latter point, Cuba already has individual bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with several CARICOM states, including Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago.

Alicia Nicholls, B.Sc., M.Sc., LL.B., is a trade and development consultant with a keen interest in sustainable development, international law and trade. You can also read more of her commentaries and follow her on Twitter @LicyLaw.