THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is moving ahead with addressing preparations for the review of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which is due in 2013. The agreement provides for a comprehensive review five years after its signing and will be conducted on a Region-wide basis and coordinated by the EPA implementation unit at the CARICOM Secretariat.
According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, this is part of the ministry’s plans for 2012 to continue with the implementation of the EPA, especially in the non-tariff areas such as services.
In addition, the public awareness programmes will be intensified, in collaboration with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Customs,the CARICOM Secretariat and the private sector.
Guyana was the first country to take the necessary legislative steps to implement the EPA with the passage of the Customs Duty (Amendment) order 2011. The bill makes way for Guyana’s entry into the EPA.
The European Union and CARIFORUM emerged from negotiations on December 16, 2007 but the agreement was not formally signed by the participating states until October 2008. Under the terms of that Economic Partnership Agreement, CARIFORUM negotiated a moratorium from January 1, 2008 to January 31, 2010, before effecting entry into force of the tariff and liberalisation commitment under the EPA. As a result, CARIFORUM countries commenced the liberalisation under the scheduled agreement from January 2011.
Guyana’s tariff treatment of goods originating in the European Union under the EPA entails: 17% of imports (or tariff lines) from the EU being excluded from liberalization; 60% of all imports or tariff lines  liberalised from 2011 and the remaining 23% of the imports will have their imports phased out over five to 25 years.
The agreement was proposed by the European Commission and all the other countries signing on, with the exception of Guyana and Haiti. However, Guyana opted for a ‘goods only’ deal.
The bold and admirable decision by then President Bharrat Jagdeo sparked much criticism from other CARICOM leaders, but the Guyanese head of state was adamant in his stance that the deal will do more harm than good to the Region.
The former President gave the reasons for such decision, namely that CARICOM and other small states have, in the past, used two main approaches to defend their interests: multilateralism and regional integration.  These, the then President believed, would have been undermined with the implementation of the EPA in its original form.
Another concern was that there were several issues regarding what had to be agreed to in the deal, including the issue of the Region agreeing to negotiate the Singapore issues which were dropped years ago from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) agenda after developing countries argued that they would not be beneficial to them.
Former President Jagdeo proposed an amendment to the EPA by a protocol and Guyana was subsequently informed that several member states of the EU, particularly Ireland, Denmark, Holland, Italy and Portugal also expressed concerns and indicated that the EC try to find satisfactory conditions for Guyana and Haiti to sign the agreement in Barbados on October 15, 2008.
Guyana subsequently made two proposals for signing which will be beneficial for member states. These were a mandatory review of the EPA five years after its signing and every subsequent five yearly period as well as a guarantee that in the event of conflict between the agreement and the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, during implementation of the EPA, the treaty shall prevail.
The EU subsequently included the two clauses for which former President Jagdeo had lobbied and with those in place Guyana signed the EPA in October 21, 2008 in Brussels.