(CARICOM Secretariat) An upcoming workshop for services officials from the CARIFORUM states constitutes a watershed event in CARIFORUM’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) implementation effort to date. It is an initiative of the EPA Implementation Unit of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.
Entitled Workshop on Implementation of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA for Services Officials, the two-day workshop is scheduled to get underway on  June 16 in Saint Lucia. This engagement is being spearheaded by the EPA Implementation Unit’s Trade in Services and Investment Specialist, Ms S.H. Allyson Francis.
Ms Francis said of the workshop, “it will seek to clarify the provisions of the EPA related to Services and Investment, point to obligations which CARIFORUM States have undertaken, identify activities needed to be undertaken to implement the obligations, draft national work plans and refine the regional work plan for services.”
The workshop is to be held just days after the inaugural meeting of the Trade and Development Committee under the CARIFORUM-EU EPA, which is scheduled for June 9 and 10 in Barbados. She noted, “the timing of the services workshop is propitious, in so far as the engagement stands to build on the momentum likely to come from the Trade and Development Committee, with respect to EPA Implementation.”
In the lead up to the regional services workshop, Ms Francis conducted an intensive round of multi-stakeholder, in-country consultations, over a period of several months. The exchanges therein were instrumental to and formed a basis for the convening of this regional services workshop.
The workshop is funded under the 9th European Development Fund (EDF), Caribbean Integration Support Programme (CISP). It is also made possible with funding from the United Kingdom Department for International Development, through the Caribbean Aid for Trade and Regional Integration Trust Fund (CARTFund).
The fifteen signatory Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (CARIFORUM) States to the EPA are the independent CARICOM Member States and the Dominican Republic.