Erica Virtue, Staff Reporter
TWO YEARS before the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) comes into existence, regional officials say the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) lacks the technical competence, financial strength and information disseminating processes for it to compete effectively in the international trade arena.
On the eve of the international trade conference to be held in Brussels, Belgium, (November 5-6), and a week-and-a-half before the third ministerial conference on trade to be held in Qatar, Henry Gill of the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), admitted that the region lacked technical capabilities when compared to developed countries.
Responding to journalists attending a two-day trade-sensitising workshop put on by the Barbados-based Caribbean Policy Development Centre, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Mr. Gill said there is a lot of skill in the region but we are short where it mattered most.
"The question of technical, human and financial resources is a very big part of the equation and we are short on these..." he said.
According to Mr. Gill, the trade umbrella has widened to include a number of new subjects, and there is a lack of information available to engage trade discussions.
The region's tertiary institutions were heavily criticised for not leading the way in providing properly researched projects that are useful to the issue of trade.
"Besides being short on the technical side, we are short in terms of individuals, personnel, and we are short in terms of finances," he said, bringing into further focus the region's inability to honour its financial commitment to fund the RNM.
The RNM's debt situation was highlighted by Ambassador Richard Bernal, who is its chief negotiator. He said a number of member-states owed thousands of dollars in debt which had accumulated. Some have since made restitution.
He noted that trade and negotiations were critical to the region, and there was no way out of them. Dr. Bernal said CARICOM was also hampered by its low profile in Geneva, Switzerland, which is the trade headquarters of the European Union.
He also knocked the region's private sector for doing little or no work for itself, expecting instead that it will be done by the RNM.
"The private sector in the region has not been much attuned to what is happening out there internationally. They are not sufficiently engaged..." he lamented.
