MINISTER of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hugh Todd, convened a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on External Negotiations (NACEN) at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, on Monday.
According to information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the NACEN is part of Guyana’s consultative framework on foreign trade matters and its mandate is to advise and give guidance on policy and national positions on key issues relating to trade with multilateral, regional and bilateral partners.
The NACEN is a key strategic inter-agency consultative mechanism that facilitates high-level public-private sector consultations regarding Guyana’s foreign trade.
While addressing the meeting, Minister Todd highlighted the role of the private sector in promoting Guyana’s trade with international partners and called upon the private sector stakeholders to get more involved in enhancing Guyana’s trade policy.
He urged both public and private sector stakeholders to actively participate in discussions aimed at enhancing trade with other countries.
During yesterday’s meeting, it was agreed that the NACEN Technical Working Groups (TWGs) will be reactivated to allow proper ventilation of trade-related issues. It was proposed that TWGs dealing with market access for trade in goods, agriculture and fisheries, and trade in service and electronic commerce could be established as a matter of priority.
In the medium to long term, other TWGs dealing with new and emerging global issues like investment, environment, Intellectual Property Rights, Anti-dumping & Countervailing Duties and trade facilitation could also be established if deemed necessary.
Participants at the NACEN Meeting were also updated on the recently concluded World Trade Organisation Thirteenth Ministerial Conference (MC 13) that was convened in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates on February 26 – March 2, 2024.
While WTO member countries never achieved convergence on agriculture and fisheries subsidies negotiations, the participants were informed that the ministers at MC 13 had adopted a forward-looking reform agenda in the Abu Dhabi Declaration and took important decisions regarding the extension of the moratorium pertaining to tariff duties on electronic transmissions, and the WTO dispute-settlement reform.
Participating at the meeting were government ministries and agencies that execute trade-related mandates, as well as private sector stakeholder representatives from the Private Sector Commission and private businesses.
