Caribbean Trade Law and Development

Tag: news

  • CARICOM Heads to meet this week for 29th Intersessional HoG Meeting

    Alicia Nicholls

    Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will meet this week, February 26 & 27, 2018, in Port au Prince, Haiti for their 29th Intersessional Meeting. The meeting will be chaired by current chairman of the Conference of the Heads of Government, Haitian President, His Excellency Jovenel Moise.

    Chairmanship of the Conference of Heads of Government rotates every six months. Haiti, which became a full member of CARICOM in 2002, will hold chairmanship from January 1st to June 30th. Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness will assume chairmanship on July 1st.

    Major agenda items for the intersessional meeting include building climate resilience, crime and violence, the impact on CARICOM Member States of blacklisting actions and de-risking actions by global banks.

    Additionally, according to the official press release, the meeting “will seek to advance plans to further strengthen key elements of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME)  including those related to travel and trade”.

    CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque; the immediate-past CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell of Grenada and current Chairman, President Moise of Haiti, will make remarks at the Opening Ceremony carded for February 26 and which will be live streamed on CARICOM’s website.

    In anticipation of the meeting, Haiti’s Ministry of Trade held a Public Forum last Friday to discuss “Integration of Haiti in CARICOM: Challenges and Opportunities”.

    Alicia Nicholls, B.Sc., M.Sc., LL.B., is an international 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.

     

  • WTO launches its new World Trade Statistical Review

    Alicia Nicholls

    The World Trade Organisation (WTO) launched its new annual flagship statistical publication, the World Trade Statistical Review yesterday. According to the WTO’s press release, this new report replaces the WTO’s previous annual statistical publication, International Trade Statistics, which was published each October. The new report will be published online in July each year and a printed report will be available from September.

    In his foreword to the report, Director-General of the WTO, Roberto Azevedo notes that “[t]he new structure of the publication allows for more comprehensive information about trade and trade policy developments to be provided, and in a more timely way.”

    In addition to statistical compilations, this current report includes a discussion on trends in global trade over the past 10 years, discussions on merchandise trade and commercial services, global and regional trading patterns. An addition is the detailed analysis of developing countries’ participation in global trade, including Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

    Among its findings are that the value of both global merchandise and commercial services trade are nearly two-times greater in 2015 than in 2005 but declined in 2015 compared to 2014. Although developing country merchandise trade declined in 2015, their commercial services exports saw a robust increase. The report also mentions the increase in the overall stockpile of restrictive measures, including trade remedies, introduced by WTO members in 2015.

    The WTO’s press release may be viewed here.

    The full report may be accessed here.

    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.

  • De-risking and its Foreign Trade Impact in the Caribbean

    De-risking and its Foreign Trade Impact in the Caribbean

    Alicia Nicholls

    A few weeks ago I had the honour and pleasure of presenting on the Foreign Trade Impact of De-Risking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (ICAC) 34th Annual Conference in beautiful Belize as part of a panel discussion along with Dr. Trevor Brathwaite, Deputy Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and Mr. Filippo Alario, Chief Risk Officer of Belize Bank.

    Alicia Nicholls ICAC 2016 Belize
    Alicia Nicholls  at ICAC 2016 Photo compliments of R Mohammed

    I wish to again express my gratitude to ICAC for the invitation and to all stakeholders and everyone who kindly provided me with information and assisted me in my research.

    Some of the key points from the presentation were as follows:

    • De-risking is a business decision but with serious implications for Caribbean foreign trade.
    • As small open economies, Caribbean countries are highly dependent on foreign trade as evidenced by their high trade to GDP ratios which range between 70-130% of GDP, according to World Bank data.
    • Several Caribbean countries are among the most dependent in the world on remittance-inflows.
    • Bank de-risking threatens the region’s integration into the global trade and financial systems and has implications for economic growth, stability, employment.
    • Disruptions to remittance and FDI flows by de-risking also have poverty alleviation and sustainable development implications.
    • Cross-border payment for goods via wire transfer and remittance sending appear to be the most affected from a trade perspective.

    Several persons  have written me requesting a copy of the full presentation. It is available below:

    ICAC_Presentation_2016_ANicholls(1)

    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.

  • 37th Regular Meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government Conference Concludes

    Alicia Nicholls

    Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) held their 37th Regular Meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government last week, July 4-6 in Georgetown, Guyana. The Heads of Government paid tribute to, and highlighted the contribution of the former Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, Mr. Patrick Manning who passed away two days before the conference. Mr. Manning, a strong proponent of the regional integration project, was praised, inter alia, for displaying “the finest qualities of regionalism” and for having an “unswerving commitment to building his country and the wider CARICOM”.

    The major topics on the agenda included regional security, the CARICOM Single Market & Economy (CSME), facilitation of travel within the Community, correspondent banking, information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and border disputes.

    Below is a synopsis of some of the major decisions to which the HoGs agreed:

    • Agreement to host a Global Stakeholder Conference on the Impact of the Withdrawal of Correspondent Banking on the Region
    • Decision to reconstitute the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket with the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, as the Chairman
    • A mandate that the CARICOM Secretariat convene a meeting of Chief Immigration Officers, CARICOM Ambassadors, and other relevant officials by 30 September 2016, in order to address the challenges being experienced by Community nationals travelling throughout the Region.
    • Endorsement of the Action Plan for Statistics in the Caribbean  which seeks to strengthen national statistical systems, inter alia.

    In regards to Brexit, the HOGs “agreed that CARICOM should continue to monitor developments as the exit process unfolded and underlined the importance of a common and structured approach that married the technical, political and diplomatic”.

    The Heads of Government also met with specially invited guest, Her Excellency President Michelle Bachelet of Chile. The HoGS expressed satisfaction with the ongoing process of normalisation of US-Cuba relations but took the opportunity to renew their call for the US to lift the economic and trade embargo against Cuba.

    The full communique may be viewed here.

    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.