Private sector gets help in negotiating int'l trade

Donna Ortega, news editor

Hylton and Chang

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the New Economy Project (NEP) have wasted no time in putting events in train to fulfil their promised assistance to the local private sector promoting its participation in the trade negotiation process.

Edward Tugendhat, an expert in the international trade negotiation process, arrives in the island today to work with local business leaders, under the auspices of USAID and NEP.

Mr. Tugendhat will be in Jamaica until June 30 as an initial step towards designing a programme to help the private sector become involved in the international trade negotiating process and prepare for participation in the new trade arena. His terms of reference indicate a deadline of July 3 for completion of the draft programme description.

His visit is a direct outcome of the formation of a working group to find ways and means by which alliances could be built to help the Jamaican private sector participate in the process. The group itself grew out of private sector participation in the VI Americas Business Forum of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)and was formalised at a meeting with representatives of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA), Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and the Jamaica Exporters Association on June 4.

Members of the working group were told, during a meeting at the NEP office in Kingston on Wednesday June 20, that USAID had agreed that NEP could offer to the group an expert to assist in fully developing a plan for this initiative.

Starting tomorrow Mr. Tugendhat will meet with chief executives, business leaders as well as the members of the working group to look at existing programmes and sketch out an appropriate framework that will complement them. It is expected that Mr. Tugendhat will make a follow-up visit.

In addressing the need to shape the plan to achieve their objectives expeditiously, Kermit Moh, director of USAID's Office of Economic Growth, nonetheless observed that, "There is an eighteen month window open to get Jamaica's position expressed in the negotiational machinery."

According to president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce Anthony Chang, the Chamber provided NEP with a proposal from the JCC Outreach Prog-ramme of the International Trade Committee (InterTrade) for briefings designed to inform business and civil society about the negotiation processes of the FTAA, WTO, EU Cotonou, and the Caribbean Single Market and Economy agreements. This effort is grounded in the government's trade negotiations machinery led by the Minister of Foreign Trade Anthony Hylton, said NEP private sector specialist, Gary Vander-hoof. Mr. Vanderhoof said that the working group sees these two initiatives as "mutually reinforcing and serving common objectives".

The consultant will use an interactive process with private sector and other key stakeholders in this arena to:

Identify a set of areas of interest and opportunities, by sector or topic, stemming from the trade liberalisation process that reflect private sector priorities.

Design a programme of activities and methodology for assisting firms in such areas as adopting international standards, developing cross-firm alliances, modifying business models, and other strategic alternatives for succeeding in the global economy.

Identify an institutional framework and operational requirements for implementing the program of activities.

Mr. Tugendhat is president and chief executive officer of CARANA Corporation. Mr. Tugendhat is a recognised expert in the areas of privatisation, enterprise restructuring, agribusiness, trade and business development. He has worked on consulting assignments in over 40 countries. He has extensive industry experience, including agriculture and agribusiness, food, textiles, apparel, automotive, hospitality, tourism, petroleum, and financial services. He has worked on numerous assignments involving trade and investment policies.

He holds a masters degree in Ibero-American Studies (concentration in Agricultural Economics), from the Univer-sity of Wisconsin, Madison, 1977. University Fellowship A.B., History, Harvard Univer-sity, 1976, Magna Cum Laude.

As president and Chief Executive Officer of CARANA Corporation he oversees the company's world-wide consulting and project management operations.

Mr. Tugendhat has been market manager, Central American and the Caribbean, Arthur D. Little, Inc., Cambridge, MA with profit centre responsibility for this region. Successfully marketed a broad range of economic development and management consulting services to private and government clients. He focused on several projects dealing with regional trade development.

He is a former professor of economic development, Arthur D. Little Management Education Institute, Cambridge.

The NEP is a four-year business development project financed by USAID to help improve the business environment.

According to NEP private sector specialist, Gary Vanderhoof, the aim was to assess how the private sector could become involved in trade negotiations and to give practical support to that involvement.

Private sector representatives agreed that there was a need to demystify the process towards the FTAA and that communication was an essential strategy in achieving this. The dichotomy was whether to provide information to enhance the negotiating process or information to point out the opportunities and how to prepare for them. The other strategy which found agreement was the building of alliances within the country and outside Jamaica that would create a network of support for private sector participation.

Collaboration

The working group would collaborate with other Jamaican initiatives to help Jamaica to prepare for globalisation and take advantage of new opportunities that the trade negotiation process is offering to Jamaican businesses.

Michael Julien, NEP chief of party, stressed that it was important for the private sector to get to international standards, and develop technical resources as these were common to all the trade negotiations. "The private sector needs to gear up to take advantage of opportunities rather than negotiate your way into the process," he suggested.

Chamber President Anthony Chang suggested that the working group use the FTAA process as a vehicle to promote change in infrastructure and policy. The three-pronged approach would seek to inform, to stimulate private sector action and to stimulate Government action.

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