Trade negotiators face tough task
It’s a subject that the average citizen may feel is beyond his or her comprehension, not to mention interest. But for a country like Belize, which lives or dies according to its commerce with the outside world, the subject of international trade is critical. Today I had the chance to speak to the men who are attempting to negotiate our way through a very tough neighbourhood.
Eamon Courtenay, Minister of Foreign Trade
"As someone said in the meeting, unless we reform, we will die."
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
That’s the consensus of the National Trade Negotiating Commission, which met for the fourth time, in Belize City today. Sorting through the alphabet soup of trade agreements around the world, the group acts as a negotiator and consultant to the government on issues affecting Belize. But as Minister of Foreign Trade Eamon Courtenay points out, the deadlock at the World Trade Organization meetings in Cancun in 2003 has created a stagnant climate for international commerce.
Eamon Courtenay
"Agriculture, of course, is perhaps the biggest single area of the trade in goods and the difficulty, if I can simplify it, is the question of removal of subsidies. The European Union for example has the biggest amount of export subsides. Other countries have what we call domestic support, you don’t help the person to export, but you subsidize the cost of production, which is also a subsidy. Now there’s a general commitment that both the European Union, Japan, the United States, Canada, the big countries, have to remove or reduce significantly these subsidies. The developing countries like Brazil, Argentina and so are saying that they are not going to agree to anything unless there are drastic cuts in those subsidies and there could not be that agreement at the W.T.O. in Cancun. And so that disagreement has spilled over in the F.T.A.A. because Brazil on one side, United States on the other side cannot agree on how they are going to reduce the subsidies and therefore nothing else is happening in that."
On the domestic front, serious challenges to the status quo in our sugar and banana industries may have negative impact on Belize’s small open economy. But analysts are cautiously optimistic about Belize’s chances for survival.
Jose Alpuche, C.E.O., Ministry of Foreign Trade
"As it relates to our domestic industry, we’ve already sustained considerable price cuts over the last five years, the industry has been working very, very hard to reach that competitive level and they are doing all in their power to even further cut back and become more competitive. So the banana industry is fairly well placed to face this final phase of liberalisation in bananas.?
?And we are confident, I personally am quite confident that we will maintain a sugar industry well into the future. However, that sugar industry much be reformed. On true reason in this, and I think we have to accept it, we have to say that not everybody will be able to remain in sugar, that’s a given. And we will have to look at how we could put in place a soft landing for those that will have to diversify out of sugar."
And that soft spot may be just to the North. Mexico, already a familiar partner in trade, is especially keen to increase the flow of goods across the border.
Senator Godwin Hulse, N.T.N.C. Member
"Mexico has opened a window which will give us an opportunity to get some of our goods into Mexico. It is not a full trade agreement; by no measure, it is not going to jeopardise Belize’s interests. But there is a window, a legal window under the W.T.O. rules called ?ALADI? where we can create a list of products that we would like to get into Mexico, which is to our advantage, and the Mexicans are pushing us to submit this list. And we have a commitment to Minister Derbez when he visits in Belize that we would try to do so by the end of April. So this is why we are pushing this to try to get that list on board and get our private sectors people to support it and say that these are things we would like to sell to Mexico, pure and simple."
Janelle Chanona
What would be the quid pro quo for Mexico?
Senator Godwin Hulse
"Well I think for them they want to deepen the trade, deepen the integration. We’re already buying a whole heap of stuff from them, so there is not much more we can buy. As I mentioned towards the end of the meeting, we have an open economy and we import everything we need in Belize. Obviously Mexico will be looking at how they can in fact divert some of the trade that we have with the U.S. and other countries to Mexican products. But indeed we do buy those things already, so it would not make a significant difference, perhaps we will get them cheaper and Mexico will make that part of the trade."
By all accounts, Belize will be banking on its strong relationships with trade blocs like CARICOM and CARIFORUM to survive what are shaping up as tough times ahead.
