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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
AT
MEETING OF COLLEGE OF NEGOTIATORS
AUGUST 28 - 29, 1998
• Pleased to welcome you at first meeting of College of Negotiators.
I do so as Chairman of Prime Ministerial Committee and as host.
CARICOM Heads of Government have asked you to undertake
historic mission in the negotiations soon to commence on the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
• You are regional negotiators - chosen for acknowledged
expertise in your fields.
• In many ways, the FTAA is without precedent in international
economic relations. It is expected to be what is known as a "third
Generation" Free Trade Agreement.
It will extend beyond arrangements for the removal of cross
border barriers to trade in goods to include barriers to trade in
services.
It will embrace as well the harmonisation of national markets in
areas such as competition and government procurement.
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• The FTAA will have to be compatible with the WTO.
In some cases, the desire has been expressed of going beyond
the WTO.
If all of these expectations are to be fulfilled the FTAA wiU be of a
fairly unique character. It could well provide precedents for
international trade and economic relations in other parts of the
world, and at the global level.
While I expect you to be foresighted, I urge that you be not unduly
precipitate.
• We have to be mindful of the context in which the CARICOM
Members will be participating in the negotiations. Our countries
are well aware of the powerful forces of change that are at work
in the world economy. We cannot afford to be complacent and
assume that it will be business as usual.
Some of these forces can offer significant opportunities for the
growth of our exports and for economic growth in general.
Others can exert negative effects.
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In that latter case, we must identify carefully the possible nature
and extent of those effects and persuade our partners to agree on
pre-emptive measures to minimise or eliminate these negative
consequences.
• We are disparate in size, in resources, in population.
• In the current period, our countries have substantial unmet
development needs. Nearly two decades of low or negative
growth have occurred in several of our countries. Taken as a
whole, the region has not enjoyed significant and self-sustaining
growth.
We must be alert to the danger signs, wherever they appear.
• Unemployment, especially among the young, is a very
troublesome factor. This is one element of an overall situation of
critical poverty, which has to be addressed with great urgency.
• The decline in official capital flows has seriously constrained
public sector investment programmes. Only in one or two
countries has private investment become a major element in
financing.
• There has been a decline in opportunities for external migration
to all of our established sources.
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• We must go into the FTAA negotiations, indeed into all external
economic negotiations, with a determination to unearth
opportunities that will help our economies to return to paths of
vigorous and sustained growth.
In so doing, we must be practical in our outlook. While willing to
accommodate the views and position of others, we must avoid
becoming victims of dogma and of ideological concepts which
bear no relevance to our economies.
• This has to be a new type of agreement. It has to create a new
order, where we work towards equality against the recognition of
our present inequality.
It must therefore be innovative. Nothing should be taken for
granted or considered immutable.
• The CARICOM countries are among the smallest and most
vulnerable economies in the world. Undiversified structures of
production and susceptibility to natural disasters make us
extremely exposed to external shocks.
We have made tremendous efforts over the past three decades to
diversify production and find new lines of activity.
There is still further progress to be made.
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Strenuous efforts have been made, and are being made, to
achieve macro-economic stability. We have not yet achieved
total success on either front, but we are not the only economies
in the world, including many Newly Industrialised Developing
countries, striving to maintain total stability and sustained
growth.
• In these negotiations we must be positive and constructive, but
also prudent. It means also that we must be extremely well
prepared.
Each of you responsible for representing CARICOM must pay
meticulous attention to detail.
You are expected to bring to the negotiations a thorough mastery
of the complex range of subjects with which you have to deal.
I am confident that you will quickly build upon the expertise and
experience, which commended you for selection by CARICOM
Heads.
• In the world today, it is not only comparative levels of
development that will count in relations between states. It is
also knowledge and information capabilities. Let no stone be left
unturned in ensuring your strengths in these latter areas.
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• The Chief Negotiator, Sir Shridath Ramphal, has coined this
unique concept of a College of Negotiators to describe you as a
group. I myself think that it is a most felicitous term. The word
College emphasises professionalism, some of the characteristics
of which I have just been drawing to your attention. But it also
emphasises the no less important feature of collegiality.
• Everything is Everything.
• You must function as a team, sharing information and insights,
ensuring consistency in positions being advanced in individual
groups, substituting for one another if exceptional circumstances
warrant it, and presenting to our negotiating partners a stance of
unity and solidarity. Through our togetherness we can influence
others and set the pace in developing the work and ambience of
the negotiations.
• You will know .that CARICOM Governments attach particular
importance to the role of the Consultative Group on smaller
economies. We envisage it as a forum servicing as an integrating
mechanism to ensure consistency and maximum effectiveness
between the individual measures being proposed for small
economies. We must at all times use the Group to explain to our
negotiating partners the peculiar features of our countries and
the manner in which particular measures are likely to impact on
them.
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•
•
Pleased at your response to serve .
I wish you success in your work over the next two days, and
beyond that, fulfilment of your mission in the period ahead.
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