The CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA): an assessment of issues relating to market access, safeguards and implications for regional integration

The recent collapse of the Doha round once again underscores the tenuous nature of international trade negotiations. Likewise, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the CARIFORUM grouping and the European Union (EU) has generated a great deal of discussion and debate over the past several months. What has clearly emerged is the existence of two diametrically opposed views on the impact and usefulness of the agreement. One view has it that the EPA is a major breakthrough in trade relations that will greatly benefit the region. On the other hand, some see it as being detrimental to the region and perhaps a total capitulation to the EU on the part of the CARIFORUM. They assert that it is part of a global EU strategy to impose World Trade Organization (WTO) policies on developing nations and get around the Doha obstacles. Both sides in this debate attempt to back up their views with reference to the text of the agreement. The objective of this review is to shed some light on the issues driving this debate particularly in the areas of market access, the impact on tariff revenues, and the implications for regional integration. This review also attempts to clarify and distill some of the main contentious issues regarding the EPA and to inform further discussion regarding an implementation plan. The approach is based on detailed study of the EPA text and its annexes plus extensive interviews with some of the main negotiators on the CARIFORUM side. Interviews were conducted both in person and via the Internet as many of the regional negotiators live or work outside of the region. The reviewer also attended presentations and discussions with some of the leading regional critics of the agreement.

Capital flows to Latin America: first quarter 2005

Includes bibliography

Capital flows to Latin America: year end 2005

Includes bibliography

La economía cubana desde el siglo XVI al XX: del colonialismo al socialismo con mercado

Incluye Bibliografía

Promoting corporate social responsibility in small and medium enterprises in the Caribbean: survey results

Includes bibliography

Social policies and socioeconomic indicators for transitional economies

Includes bibliography

Bond markets for Latin American debt in the 1990s

Includes bibliography

Centroamérica: estadísticas de hidrocarburos 2009

Incluye Bibliografía

The role of the State and the quality of the public sector

Sectoral policies make explicit and implicit assumptions about the behaviour and capabilities of the agents (such as dynamic responses to market signals, demand-led assistance, collaborative efforts, participation in financing); which we consider to be rather unrealistic. Because of this lack of realism, policies that aim to be neutral often turn out to be highly exclusive. They fail to give sufficient importance to the special features of the sector -with its high climatic, biological and commercial risks and its slow adaptation- or to the fact that those who take decisions in agriculture are now mostly in an inferior position because of their incomes below the poverty line, their inadequate training, their traditions based on centuries of living in precarious conditions, and their geographical location in marginal areas, far from infrastructure and with only a minimum of services and sources of information. These people have only scanty and imperfect access to the markets which, according to the prevailing model, should govern decisions and the (re);distribution of the factors of production. In our opinion, this explains the patchy and lower-than-expected growth registered by the sector after the reforms to promote the liberalization of markets and external openness in the region. In view of the results of the application of the new model, it may be wondered whether Latin America can afford a form of development which excludes over half of its agricultural producers; what the alternatives are; and what costs and benefits each of them offers in terms of production and monetary, social, spatial and other aspects. The article outlines the changes in policies and their results at the aggregate level, summarizes the arguments usually put forward to explain agricultural performance in the region, and proposes a second set of explanations based on a description of the agents and the responses that may be expected from them, contrasting the latter with the supposedly neutral nature of the policies.

United States Trade Developments 2012-2013

Includes bibliography.

Public debt sustainability in the Caribbean

This paper analyses public debt in the most indebted Caribbean countries – i.e. Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Kitts and Nevis – from the standpoint of its sustainability. A level of debt is deemed to be sustainable when the debt-to-GDP ratio remains constant or declines. The concept of sustainability is closely linked to that of solvency. A government is solvent if the net present value of its future primary balances (i.e. that excludes interest payments) is equal to or greater than the present value of public debt stock. It can be demonstrated that if the debt-to-GDP ratio is not on an explosive path, that it either stable or decreasing, the solvency condition holds. It is worth noting that the concept of fiscal sustainability addressed in this paper differs from that of optimality of public debt. The analysis that follows is intended to determine whether the service of the current debt levels is consistent with the fiscal stance. Therefore, it does not set out to identify the target debt level based on any optimality criteria. The next section presents the main features of different theoretical approaches to analyse public debt sustainability.1 Section II discusses the situation of public debt in the Caribbean countries showing different indicators; Section III analyses debt sustainability in countries with access to market financing; Section IV does the same in Guyana – a country dependent on concessional financing and, as such, included in the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative – and the countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). Sections V and VI go beyond debt levels as determinants of fiscal sustainability, highlighting the importance of the currency composition of debt and the variability of fiscal revenue. The last section concludes.

Barriers to Latin American and Caribbean exports in the US market, 1998-1999

Includes bibliography

Trade between Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Central American Common Market (CACM) countries: the role to play for ports and shipping services

Includes bibliography

Latin America and the Caribbean. International migration and the global market: background to the decent work agenda

Includes bibliography

Latin America's return to the private international capital market

Includes bibliography