2006, January 14: At least four Caribbean territories have expressed disagreement over the Region’s trade regulations and practices following this week's ministerial meeting of the Caribbean Community's Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) held in Guyana.

According to a report by noted Caribbean Journalist Rickey Singh, writing in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines have complained against unfair treatment by some countries, Antigua and Barbuda in particular, in their export of wheaten flour. He reported that Guyana and Suriname, on the other hand, continue to stress their discontent at the erosion of their regional rice market by discriminatory treatment in favour of external imports of this commodity.

Singh reported “sharp exchanges” during the 20th COTED ministerial at the CARICOM Secretariat headquarters, as well as at informal and bilateral sessions at the one-day ministerial meeting.

“Guyana, Caricom's single biggest producer and exporter of rice and sugar, has now threatened to refer its problems in the intra-regional marketing of its rice to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which has original and binding jurisdiction on settlement of trade disputes. However, the issue will only go to the CCJ if existing dispute settlement mechanisms under Caricom's revised treaty fail to produce desired results in the application of the Common External Tariff (CET). Guyana claims the CET is being breached by at least five countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Grenada and Jamaica,” Singh reported.

He said that, at the start of the COTED meeting on Thursday last, Guyana's Minister for Foreign Trade and International Co-operation, Clement Rohee, made a formal proposal for "compensation" by countries that have knowingly breached the rules governing the suspension of the CET.

According to Singh, both Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines had earlier made specific representations to the Antigua and Barbuda government for circumventing an arrangement to give priority in the purchase of flour manufactured within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) by importing supplies instead from outside the sub-region.

St Vincent and the Grenadines, in particular, stands to lose approximately one quarter of its traditional flour exports within the OECS sub-region from Antigua and Barbuda's purchase of the commodity from Trinidad and Tobago.  In this regard, he said, Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and his Antiguan counterpart, Baldwin Spencer, had been in contact over the past two days.

CARICOM Secretary General Edwin Carrington, at the formal opening of the COTED meeting [ ... see full text of speech here], reminded states that operations of the trade in goods regime and its many component parts occupy an important place on our agenda today. It (the trade regime) is the bread and butter, or should I say the rice and beans of our arrangements."  We need to ensure that it functions "like a well-oiled machine."

Unresolved trade disputes, outstanding at the close of the meeting, will be referred to next month's Inter-Sessional Meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government to be held in Port-of-Spain.