Former prime minister Edward Seaga says Jamaica will not benefit from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the European Union Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Seaga, who is now chancellor of the University of Technology (UTech), told a public lecture at the University last Thursday that the agreements were not the way forward. He says the agreements were more of a hindrance to Jamaica’s overall development.
The CSME allows for the free movement of goods, services, skills and labour across the region. the issue has been on the front burner here after a Jamaican woman claimed she had been sexually abused by immigration officials on arrival in Barbados last month.
Seaga, 80, who served as prime minister from 1980-89, said that the region wasted another decade on the CSME, noting for example, that there is still no single currency within the 15-member regional grouping.
productivity levels
“It was evident that differing productivity levels of different countries will increase exports in a few member countries while showing decrease in most others, including Jamaica, A reality check in this case, where data was readily available, would have foretold that the CSME was a grand design of conflicting self interest on which another decade would be wasted,” he said.
CARICOM countries, as part of the wider Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) grouping, signed the EPA with the European Union in 2008, but Seaga said that countries are now negotiating EPAs for open markets.
He said Jamaica would not benefit from the EPA because of a number of reasons.
“Poor countries will not be able to develop because it’s a one-way flow of benefits, widening the gap between rich and poor nations. The Jamaican economy is a strong importer but week exporter. As such it will not benefit from increased export earnings in the CSME or the EPA schemes. It is a supermarket, not a factory” Seaga said.
Source: Jamica Gleaner
APR
2011
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