Caribbean makes breakthrough in FTAA negotiations

BRIDGETOWN — The Caribbean region has gained a significant ‘breakthrough’ in trade negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), scheduled to be operationalised in January 2006.

The special treatment on tariff differentials that the Caribbean Community (Caricom) has been skilfully and strenuously negotiating under provisions for the emerging FTAA, have won the ‘greenlight’ from the United States of America and Canada.

In disclosing what he regards as “very good news indeed for the Caribbean”, director-general of the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), ambassador Richard Bernal, told the Observer yesterday that only the Caribbean region has been approved for this special concession.

It would apply to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules on tariffs for a specified list of agricultural products over an extended period that would be most helpful to the economies of the Caribbean Community states, as distinct from the tariffs to be applied to other members of the FTAA.

The details of the special tariff regime for the Caribbean within the FTAA process were expected to be officially communicated to the region’s governments yesterday by Dr Bernal, who represents the region on the FTAA’s trade committee.

What makes this development, which came at an FTAA trade negotiating committee meeting last Friday in Santo Domingo, even more encouraging, from the perspective of the Caribbean, is that the decisive support of the USA and Canada came without any specific time frame being set for the special concession on higher rates of tariff for agricultural products.

The quest for special and differential treatment in trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) and the FTAA has been a central factor in the Caribbean’s strategy and the longer adjustment period approved at last week’s FTAA trade committee meeting to phase out customs duties mark a most important development for the Caribbean.

Kidnap suspect held in T&T

PORT-OF-SPAIN — The Trinidad and Tobago police believe that they have made the first real crack in a kidnapping ring with the arrest of a 29 year-old man for the recent abduction of Arima businessman Ishwar Maharaj.

The suspect, whose name has been withheld pending his expected appearance in the Port-of-Spain Magistrate’s court yesterday, was arrested on Monday by the Anti-Kidnapping Squad.

Following consultation with the director of public prosecuion, the suspect was charged. He was previously convicted and sentenced to two five-year terms, to run concurrently, for robbing and kidnapping a motorist in February 2001.

However, he was released on bail when he appealed his conviction. But when his case came up recently in the Appeal Court, the court was told that the accused had skipped bail and was being hunted by the police.

Some 18 persons have been kidnapped in Trinidad and Tobago for the year, with two of them being murdered and millions of dollars in ransom paid for some others.