Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

BERNAL

Richard Bernal, who has served for nearly a decade as the region's chief trade negotiator,is leaving as head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) to take up a job at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington.

He will be an alternate executive director for the Caribbean.

Bernal's resignation will take effect on June 30, six months after the completing negotiations with the European Union (EU) for a free trade deal that has grown deeply contentious in the region.

Timely career move

Yesterday, Bernal confirmed that he sent his resignation to the Caribbean Community's (CARI-COM) chairman, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, but declined to discuss the reasons for his decision beyond that it was a timely career move.

However, other informed obsevers, as well as people who know Bernal say that he has grown disenchanted with the post-negotiations attitude of some regional leaders to the so-called Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) he struck with the Europeans and the manner with which some intellectuals have attacked the pact.

Significantly, Bernal is leaving the job as the Caribbean prepares to negotiate a trade agreement with Canada to replace Caribcan, Ottawa's non-reciprocal free trade pact with the Caribbean. (See related story )

Bernal is also known to have had private concerns about the lack robust mechanism for decision-making within CARICOM, a fledgling single market and economy, and a failure of regional leaders to substantively address the issue.

"Richard had made his views known within the councils of CARICOM," one source said yesterday.

Under the EPA, one of several the EU hopes to conclude with countries in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific that were previously covered by the Cotonou Agreement, Caribbean states have duty free access to the European markets for all their products. The region will, starting in three years, progressively open its market, leading to full reciprocity in a decade-and-half.

However, not long after the pact was initialled in December, Guyana's president Bharrat Jagdeo, suggested that the Caribbean and caved in the Europeans for fear of losing markets.

Additionally, a group of regional intellectuals have argued that the Caribbean gave up much more than it got, and have lambasted negotiators for failing to tie down promised financial support to transform their economies.

Bernal has insisted that the agreement offers great opportunities for Caribbean economies, opening a market of over 400 million people for their goods and services.

Bernal, an academic and economist who worked in the public and private sectors, first joined the CRNM as its top technical man, serving initially under Sir Shridath Ramphal. He succeeded Sir Shridath as executive director.

Prior to joining the CRNM he served for a decade as Jamaica's ambassador to the United States, so in joining the IDB is returning to a city in whose ways he is familiar.

"The first two years I will be the alternate executive director. For the next two years I will be the executive director for the Caribbean," he told the Financial Gleaner.

He explained: "The first two years I will represent Jamaica's interest basically. It is a rotation, Barbados will be the executive director for two years and I will be the alternate."

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com