The coverage of Public Procurement in the EPA pertains only to transparency. Market access in Government Procurement is not covered in the Agreement. In terms of transparency, there are agreed benchmarks in respect to the publication of the invitation to tender and notification of the contract award. Article 167 of the EPA addresses the scope of the Chapter in Public Procurement. The preamble to this article does refer to: “…treating any eligible supplier of either CARIFORUM or the EC equally in accordance with the principle of open and effective competition”. This simply means that all eligible suppliers are equally subject to the transparency requirement provisions stated in the EPA. The term ‘eligible supplier’ is defined in the EPA as ‘a supplier who is allowed to participate in the public procurement opportunities of a Party or Signatory CARICORUM State in accordance with domestic law’.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry does not have oversight or responsibility for e-commerce environment. This responsibility lies with the e-Commerce Unit of the National ICT Centre, Ministry of Public Administration which is the authority that develops policy, and creates the enabling environment for the conduct of e-commerce transactions. To the extent that legislative changes are required, particularly as they affect the national financial system (for e.g. in the case of the enablement of electronic payments), the Ministries of Legal Affairs and Finance are also key constituents in the process. As such, the Ministry of Public Administration through the National ICT Centre drives the policy positions for an enabling e-commerce environment and will consult and engage with the relevant Ministries to have any necessary legislative instruments prepared. In so far as free trade agreements incorporate elements of e-commerce, direct liaison is made with the Ministry of Public Administration to provide appropriate guidance in these areas.
 

The quantifiable benefits attributable to consumers are indirect. The benefits are indirect due to the fact that there is no direct form of payment, compensation or subsidy available to consumers under the EPA. However, benefits will accrue from the following areas:

Consumers will stand to benefit from lower prices in the market place because of heightened competition from European goods and services in the CARIFORUM (domestic) market;

Furthermore, with financial assistance being rendered to Trinidad and Tobago under the ambit of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF), this country will stand to benefit from the use of sustainable manufacturing techniques. This will increase the quality of goods and services supplied to the market place while reducing the adverse impact of manufacturing procedures and processes on the environment, inevitably reducing cost and thus prices; and

 Assistance from the 10th EDF is also aimed at not only diversifying the economy away from the helms of the Hydrocarbon sector but developing competitive businesses in Trinidad and Tobago. This will have the effect of lowering cost of doing business (cost of production/transaction cost) thus, benefiting consumers in the medium to long term.

The MFN provisions requires that the EU be granted similar treatment in instances where better or additional preferences are granted by Trinidad and Tobago and CARICOM to another major trading partner. A major trading partner is defined as countries which account for 1 percent or 1.5 percent of world merchandise exports or trade in services, respectively. Accordingly two conditions have to be satisfied:

(i) Trinidad and Tobago/CARICOM would have completed an agreement with a major trading partner.

(ii) the treatment provided under that negotiated agreement would have to be better or additional to what currently obtains in the EPA.

Similarly, if the EU engages in the provision of better or additional treatment to a group of developing countries, then those provisions would have to be provided to CARICOM. However, the market access provision granted by the EC to CARIFORUM is the highest level that can be granted i.e. duty free quota free access. There is still room for improvement in the EU’s services offer.

Finally, there is some debate as to applicability of the MFN provision to countries like Brazil (a developing country which accounts for over 1% of world merchandise trade). This is due to the fact that the EPA was negotiated under the rubric of WTO Article XXIV for a free trade agreement. The rationale for this is that there are separate provisions for negotiations between developing countries under the Enabling Clause.

Goods manufactured in free zones are not covered under the EPA. The only mention of free zone is in Article 38 of Protocol 1 Concerning the Definition of the Concept of ‘Originating Products’ and Methods of Administrative Cooperation which states:
1.The CARIFORUM States and the EC Party shall take all necessary steps to ensure that products traded under cover of a proof of origin or a supplier’s declaration and which in the course of transport use a free zone situated in their territory, are not substituted by other goods and do not undergo handling other than normal operations designed to prevent their deterioration.

2. By means of an exemption to the provisions contained in paragraph 1, when originating products are imported into a free zone under cover of a proof of origin and undergo treatment or processing, the authorities concerned shall issue a new movement certificate EUR.1 at the exporter’s request, if the treatment or processing undergone complies with the provisions of this Protocol.

Accordingly, it is presumed that the treatment which was accorded to goods manufactured in a free zone prior to the EPA would continue in the absence of its treatment in the EPA. The key here is originating products and its certification for duty free treatment under the Rules of Origin. Thus if these products were deemed as originating and provided with duty free treatment, then the same is applicable under the EPA.

The regional preference provision does not provide a specified timeline for the removal of the respective barriers. However, to extent that there exists a timeline in the commitment of a CARIFORUM State to the EC, this will impact on the time for implementation. For example, it is expected that the outer time frame for the implementation of Law 173 will be that time when the Dominican Republic has enacted the necessary legislation to have these commitments to the EC met. In that instance, the Dominican Republic based on the regional preference is also committed to having the application of this law removed from other CARIFORUM States at the same timeframe as that for the EC based on the CARIFORUM-EC EPA obligation.