Submitted by Bush tea
NON-TARIFF BARRIERS (NTBs) imposed by some developed countries are a concern for Caribbean governments and, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Business Christopher Sinckler warns, they can derail regional efforts to export. Sinckler said agriculture, the region’s “most protected sector” would be the hardest hit by NTBs which he claimed had “reduced the benefits of trade liberalisation”.
The minister told members of the Caribbean Farmers’ Network meeting at Savannah Hotel, “Developed countries such as the United States and the European Union often boast of having very low tariffs relative to developing countries. What they are silent on is the level of non-tariff barriers relative to developing countries.
“Standards generally differ as to the level or incidence of non-tariff barriers. They all, however, seem to point to the fact that NTBs are more prevalent in developed than in developing countries,” he noted.
Sinckler said that while Caribbean governments support establishing international standards for goods and measures aimed at genuinely protecting human, animal and plant health and safety, they would never support measures “which are deceptively designed to exclude the few agricultural products we can competitively export”. (GC)
Source: Nation Newspaper
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It is really interesting how quickly our new ministers learn the language of international politics (.. from the old civil servants no doubt..)…. Did you note the term ‘NON TARIFF BARRIERS’ (NTB)? …. Sounds so harmless…
Let me define that term for the BU family.
The developed world has led a global drive to remove all national barriers to international trade. Their plan was based on the premise that their superior technologies and economies of scale would easily allow their industries to overwhelm those of the developing world who would then be reduced to mere markets. This is the real focus of Globalization.
The developed countries then essentially removed their trade tariffs. HOWEVER, they introduced numerous and varied OTHER barriers to trade which effectively inhibits the ability of developing countries to export goods to these developed markets.
Examples of these NTBs are:
1-The establishment of new safety and health rules, which require expensive and exhaustive ‘safety standards’ to be met for all products imported.
2 -Setting new and ever-changing Quality standards that must be met in order to qualify for export status. These Quality standards, such as ISO2000, incur significant costs, and exposes any industrial secrets to the first world ‘inspectors’. This removes any possibility of competitive advantages for developing industries.
3- Providing substantial subsidies to their own farmers and manufacturers which artificially lower their per-unit costs resulting in unfair advantages over those of developing countries who are not allowed subsidies.
These are only SOME of the schemes designed to disadvantage and frustrate us.
Despite these well documented and generally known shortcomings, we still have third world leaders calling for us to ‘sign on’ to this trap called the EPA.
What ROT.
Rather than wasting time even debating this useless document, Bajans should be being educated about the REALITIES that face us – USING LANGUAGE that we understand…
What Non Tariff Barriers What?!?
Did you mean ‘underhanded, deceitfulness’ Mr. Sinckler? And if these are the kind of ‘partners’ that we will have to work with do we really need meaningless agreements – or should we be seeking realistic COUNTER STRATEGIES?
…..we may well all end up in duck’s gut anyway… But Bush tea would MUCH PREFER to go down roaring and fighting like a lion, than being led like sheep to certain slaughter…
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