The capacity and institutions to deal with negotiations are two of the most critical challenges facing Guyana, CARICOM and the developing world Minister of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation, Clement Rohee, says.
Apart from those challenges, Rohee said, Guyana and some other developing countries have no representation in Geneva to follow the negotiations going on at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and this places additional burdens on them.
Addressing participants at the opening session of a two-day workshop on `Market access in the Doha work programme: State of play and implications for CARICOM countries’ at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel on Thursday, Rohee said that in spite of the creation of the ministry, which he now heads, there were difficulties in keeping up to date with all the negotiations which were taking place. This, he said, was because of limited human and financial resources.
He said that as he spoke, negotiations were taking place on agriculture in Geneva, where even the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) had no representation. He expressed the hope that this situation could be corrected speedily.
It was in this respect, he said, that Guyana and other CARICOM countries were pressing for special and preferential treatment for small states and economies.
Market access, he said, was becoming more unpredictable and uncertain and at present, this was one of the most topical and critical issues given the pressure to liberalise trade.
Countries like Guyana, he noted, were mainly exporters of raw materials and faced great danger in a situation where they did not influence the prices of commodities on the global market. However, he feels that all is not lost as he believes that small economies and developing countries scored some decisive successes at the last ministerial meeting that was held in Doha, Qatar.
In brief remarks, United Nations Development Programme Deputy Resident Representative, Thomas Gass, said that the workshop on market access came at a time when the developing world “has become sober about global solidarity and realises that the playing field will not become level by itself.”
The just-concluded Earth Summit in Johannesburg, he said, has also shown that some of the most powerful industrialised countries will do everything possible to draw the debate into a closed arena in which the competitive economic advantage is to their benefit.
He said that the WTO was one of these arenas and one of the results of the summit will make the role of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) much more important in bringing the social and governance issues on the table.
Industrialised countries, he said, were spending a lot of money and investing in capacities in preparing their own negotiators for favourable deals as part of the follow up to Doha. Because of their size, number and economic dependence, he said, CARICOM countries were extremely vulnerable in these negotiations. Gass said that no one will sit down and design development measures for the CARICOM countries; they had to do it themselves. However, he noted that the United Nations through the UNDP has been a keen supporter of CARICOM and Guyana.
Among the presenters and resource personnel were Stefano Inama, Marisa Henderson and Olle Ostensson of UNCTAD; the Head of the Agriculture Project Cycle Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and CARICOM lead negotiator on agriculture; Head of the Private Sector Commission Peter de Groot, Chairman of Demerara Distillers Ltd, Yesu Persaud and Director of Marketing, Guyana Sugar Corporation Nisa Surujbally.