Every tick of the clock in the countdown towards January 1, 2008 is critical. It is a date all Jamaicans had better underline in their diaries. On that New Year’s Day, the trading world as we know it will end, as negotiations begin to replace the Lome-type pacts which have linked Europe and its former colonies in the last 29 years.

Six Jamaicans, including a representative of the Private sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), were in Barbados for a sobering conference last week to hear European and Caribbean experts agonise over the issues which have emerged ahead of one of the most important dates in the unfolding history of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.

Bottomline, the World trade Organisation (WTO) says all the world should trade under equal rules. That means that such things like subsidies, artificial barriers, special and preferential treatment enjoyed by some regions and countries will have to go. The deadline is December 31, 2007.

The Lome convention and succeeding agreements between the ACP and Europe are full of these preferential trading arrangements, especially covering sugar and banana exports from the former colonies. For example, under a quota system, all the banana that Jamaica produces can find markets in Europe, mainly in the United Kingdom, at guaranteed prices. These arrangements have kept earnings in those sectors generally stable over almost three decades.

If they were to go without adequate replacements, the sugar and banana industries as we know it, would collapse. The consequences are not hard to imagine. Those two export crops are among the largest foreign exchange earners, not to mention their overriding importance as employers of labour and their spin-off benefits in Jamaica and many of the other ACP countries. And there are several other areas of ACP/EU relations that would be severely affected.

In preparation for the end to these unilateral trade preferences, the two trading blocs have agreed to work together in setting the stage for the negotiations beginning the next day, towards what they are calling new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) governing trading and investment relations.

Last week’s TRINNEX Regional Seminar in Barbados was one in a series of events to get the Caribbean private sector ready and to strengthen its capacity to fully participate in the ACP/EU negotiations. It was held in collaboration with the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) and the Centre for International Services (CIS) through the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.

TRINNEX (Trade and Investment Nexus Facilitation Initiative) is an initiative of PROINVEST, a partnership programme developed and undertaken by the EU on the behalf of the ACP group of countries. TRINNEX is intended to support the ACP private sector organisations in their efforts to enhance their involvement in the negotiations of the EPAs and strengthen their capacities in the formulation of policies and strategies in relation to trade, investment and related agreements.

Anticipating that some countries, dreading the absence of the Lome-type pacts, might be hoping that there would be an extension of the final deadline, EU Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean Amos Tincani was undiplomatically frank: “I would not bet one euro on it (the deadline) being extended beyond that date.”

Tincani’s address at the opening of the two-day meeting on June 17, set the tone for intense discussions. He shifted blame from Europe for the new realities, arguing that “it is not a self-imposed deadline – it is dictated by the international context”.

Tincani also dismissed excuses that a variety of problems outside the control of Caribbean countries were militating against regional preparedness for the new trading arrangements. The Caribbean just needed to free up movement of labour and pull down the many other fences, like quota and tariff barriers, that were holding back countries’ ability to expand productivity and trade.

Some delegates shifted uncomfortably in their seats as he declared: “You don’t have freedom of movement. You give freedom of movement to your creators (professionals). That is good for the soul but it is bad for your competitiveness. A fundamental truth is that you must provide the trade while we (Europe) provide the enabling environment. Our offer is as generous as it gets. You have to take advantage of it now. It is your moment.”

The enabling environment to which he referred is free access to the huge European market that would come with the WTO rules. It would challenge the capacity of Caribbean traders not accustomed or prepared to produce for anything but a small market as the Caricom area.

Tincani strongly supported the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, suggesting that countries do not hamstring themselves by insisting on the idea of unanimity in decision-making. Europe, he noted, had spent 20 years negotiating their single market because of the unanimity principle. In the end, they achieved the single market when they shifted to the principle of ‘qualified majority decision’.

Speaking for the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, vice-president, embraced the need for urgent preparations ahead of the January 1, 2008 date, saying that countries would only achieve economic success to the extent that their firms were able to master the production and sale of goods and services.

“It is therefore appropriate to engage our regional shareholders in dialogue on mechanisms of survival and success as we embark on a partnering arrangement with the European Union,” Ramkissoon said.

“Our vision at CAIC is to make the Caribbean private sector a hemispheric winner and a global leader. I believe that the initiative to include the private sector in trade negotiations is opportune. In the developed countries, major firms are actively involved in making inputs to the external trade negotiations of their respective governments. “Greater private sector input into the negotiation process is always needed, one, to inform negotiators as to the competitive vulnerabilities of producers and two, to inform producers of market opportunities that result from new agreements. If the Caribbean business sector does not actively participate in the meetings and discussions leading to these vital regional agreements, then it is likely to lose by default. We must be part of the process, as the results of any negotiations will affect us all,” he warned.

Ramkissoon said the private sector had many concerns about the EPAs, “which in its simplest sense is all about conducting free trade between the European Union and ACP countries”.

“We are not concerned about whether or not we can stop it in its tracks or opt out of it because we know that is impossible. We are concerned about the manner and rate at which we are preparing the region for the new rules. We are concerned about the potential impact of these Partnership Agreements on our economies, and how the Region should be prepared for the rules of the EPAs,” he told participants.

In a well received presentation, Jamaica’s Robert Evans, managing director of Technical Enterprises, argued the case for adopting adjudication as a cost-effective means of resolving disputes in modern business dealings. Evans contended that litigation and arbitration, other dispute solving means, could be lengthy and high-cost, with the potential to derail a project.

“Adjudication is the most rapid dispute resolution tool and the results are binding until overturned by arbitration or litigation, thus enabling the process to continue.The inclusion of adjudication in the framework of commercial agreements in the Caribbean will benefit regional commerce by reducing expenses and uncertainties attributable to disputes,” Evans said.