Canada's Minister of International Trade is leading a delegation to a meeting of a core group of ministers from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Port of Spain, Trinidad, beginning Friday.Stockwell Day's office says the minister will discuss the Americas as one of Canada’s priority markets and highlight mutual trade and investment opportunities for Canadian business and CARICOM.
He will also use this visit to actively promote Canada’s commitment to free and open international trade.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Trade and Industry Minister Mario Browne will chair the talks and lead the CARICOM delegation, which will lay the groundwork for negotiations with Canada on a trade development agreement.
Formal negotiations will begin later this year.
The CARICOM secretariat says the talks in Trinidad are “intended to set the tone for and finalise the scope of negotiations as well as arrive at a mutual understanding on the treatment of development in the negotiations”.
Trade ministers from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada and Jamaica, will also attend the talks. The small group has been designated by the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to represent the region.
Trade and economic co-operation relations between CARICOM and Canada are covered under a number of instruments, including the 1979 CARICOM-Canada Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement (CARIBCAN) and its protocols, including the 1998 Protocol on Rum.
CARIBCAN provides unilateral duty free access to eligible goods from beneficiary countries in the English-speaking Caribbean up to 2011.
The CARICOM Secretariat says two-way merchandise trade between CARICOM and Canada averaged more than US$700 million over the last 10 years with a surplus averaging more than US$60 million in favour of the region.
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