JAMAICA TO IMPLEMENT CARICOM-COSTA RICA

Kingston, May 7- The Jamaican Government has approved the implementation of the free trade agreement with Costa Rica, just over nine years after it was signed with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Cabinet has also agreed to the implementation of a free-trade agreement between CARICOM and the Dominican Republic, almost 15 years after its signing on August 22, 1998.

It has also approved the implementation of the trade and economic cooperation agreement between Cuba and CARICOM, nearly 13 years after its June 2000 signing.

In all three cases, Cabinet has instructed drafting instructions to the chief parliamentary counsel for amendments to the Customs Act to facilitate their execution, according to a ministry paper tabled in Parliament recently.

With respect to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, the ministry paper noted that Jamaica is the only more developed country of CARICOM that has not formally implemented the agreements.

Jamaica has facilitated the CARICOM/Cuba agreement despite the liberalisation not being formally implemented, the ministry paper said.

Costa Rica has been lobbying the Jamaican Government to fully implement the free-trade agreement.

However, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Anthony Hylton has been reluctant to do so, saying that he needed clarity on issues relating to rules of origin, given that Costa Rica has moved to establish a free-trade agreement with the United States.

He said that if Jamaica was to benefit, there must be an agreement to ensure there is not a trade pass-through of goods from the United States to Jamaica.

However, Costa Rica's Minister of Foreign Trade Anabel Gonzalez, in an interview with the Financial Gleaner in March, encouraged Jamaica to fully implement the agreement, saying that provisions could be included to ensure there is not a pass-through of goods from elsewhere.

"There are other FTAs that we've negotiated where we have included a number of provisions precisely to avoid trans-shipment. So we are going to make a proposal in that regard and we think that this may be a protocol that we can put in place once the agreement is approved," she said then.

Established in 2004

The agreement was established in 2004 and is intended to increase trade between CARICOM and Costa Rica by granting reciprocal duty-free or preferential access to a wide range of products.

Other CARICOM countries where the Costa Rica agreement has already entered into force are Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Barbados.

The agreement signed between CARICOM and the Dominican Republic was meant to establish a free-trade area comprised of 14 million people when it comes into effect.

It was expected to take effect either on January 1, 1999 or upon completion of a plan of action scheduled to be completed 90 days after its signing.

The fundamental objective of the agreement is to strengthen trade relations between the parties in conformity with the principles, rights and obligations of the World Trade Organisation.

With the agreement, CARICOM and the Dominican Republic are seeking to promote and expand the sale of goods between them through, among other things, free access to each other's markets, albeit with some exception of goods; elimination of non-tariff barriers of trade; the establishment of a system of rules of origin; customs cooperation and the harmonisation of the technical, sanitary and phytosanitary processes.

The agreement includes safeguard mechanisms to protect the local producers of each nation against illegal competition, harmful importations, subsidies for exports and other internal practices that cause distortion or menace to trade.

It called for CARICOM and the Dominican Republic's cooperation in agriculture, mining, industry, construction, tourism, transportation, telecommunications, banking, insurance, capital markets, professional services, and science and technology.

In July 2000, CARICOM and Cuba entered into a trade and economic cooperation agreement to strengthen their commercial and economic ties.

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