NASSAU, Bahamas – Minister of Financial Services, Trade and Industry and Immigration Brent Symonette is heading a government and private sector delegation that is currently in Geneva, Switzerland, for the fourth Meeting of the Working Party on the accession of The Bahamas to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
A press release on March 31 said Mr. Symonette would be accompanied by Chief Negotiator for The Bahamas’ accession to the WTO Zhivargo Laing, along with other senior technical officers from the Ministry of Financial Services, Trade & Industry and Immigration, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture & Marine Resources and the Bahamas Customs Department.
The release also noted that members of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation (BCCEC) would be members of the mission as observers.
The meeting will be chaired by DPR Ambassador Andrew Staines, the United Kingdom’s deputy permanent representative to WTO, who revealed on the @UKMissionGeneva twitter page that the meeting will build on progress at the September 21, 2018 meeting.
In the aftermath of that meeting, WTO members praised “The Bahamas’ commitment to reactivate and accelerate its WTO accession process after six years of impasse,” according to an article on the WTO website.
“At the third meeting of the Working Party on the Accession of The Bahamas, held on 21 September, members expressed their full support to the government of the Caribbean nation in its intention to secure WTO membership by the end of 2019,” the release stated, adding that The Bahamas “is the last nation in the Americas still outside the WTO.”
The article quoted Financial Services, Trade and Industry and Information Minister Symonette, the third “Working Party meeting effectively re-launches the negotiations after a six-year hiatus,” noting that he “recalled that the reactivation of this process started late last year when the Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Hubert A. Minnis, formally announced the commitment of the government to the WTO accession process with a tentative accession date of December 2019″.
The article said Mr Symonette stressed that the government had introduced “series of economic reforms in order to diversify the economy, create new business opportunities, create quality jobs and rising incomes, improve the government´s fiscal position and enhance the development of infrastructure.”
“These reforms and the core economic principles that facilitate them – fair and free trade, competition and intellectual property rights protection – are consistent with the aims of the WTO and the global trading system it promotes. Given their alignment with the national development interests of The Bahamas, restarting and committing to the conclusion of this process was deemed a strategic move for The Bahamas,” Mr. Symonette was quoted as saying.
According to the article, the Chair of the Working Party, Ambassador Andrew Staines of the United Kingdom, stressed that the accession process of The Bahamas “is strategically important, not only for herself and her reform agenda, but also for the region.”
“The Bahamas is the last nation in the Caribbean and, indeed in the Western hemisphere, still outside the WTO. We live in a globalized world and being part of the multilateral trading system is vital for any country,” Ambassador Staines said.
