Guyanese Americans should become involved in the political process if they want their voices heard

Now that the US presidential and other elections are over for this American election cycle, Guyanese Americans need to review their participation and in-involvement in the process. Although there was a lot of excitement over the presidential candidate, and justifiably so, I did not observe a lot of involvement in getting out the votes for their candidate.

Politics is not a spectator sport; one cannot stay on the sidelines and expect positive results.
Involvement is important in order to receive better representation from elected officials.
And involvement requires more than simple registration and voting (although those two steps are crucial and must be undertaken even if nothing else is attempted). Guyanese should consider volunteering for campaigns and become donors to candidates so that they wield influence the way South Asian Indians and Israelis or other groups do.

In America, money talks. Big organizations also wield political clout.
So Guyanese organizations should consider forming a federation to speak with American politicians with a strong voice.
Next year, there will be mayoral elections in NY. Guyanese need to start preparing themselves to become involved in the process.
Since the 1980s, I have volunteered for the campaigns of many politicians, including the first African American NY Mayor David Dinkins and the first African American President-elect Barack Obama.

While others were cheering on the sidelines, I was working the phone, through my teachers’ union, or handing out palm cards, etc, imploring people to vote for Obama in battleground states.

Guyanese-Americans need to become more actively involved in the political process if they want their voices heard.

--Vishnu Bisram

Caribbean Economic Partnership Agreement - briefing

The European Union and countries of the Caribbean region have today signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) which will strengthen ties between the two regions and promote regional integration in the Caribbean. The EPA is the first genuinely comprehensive North-South trade and development agreement in the global economy. It includes a package of measures to stimulate trade, investment and innovation, and to promote sustainable development, build a regional market among Caribbean countries and help eliminate poverty.

Why a new trade agreement between the EU and the Caribbean?

For more than thirty years trade between Europe and the Caribbean has been based largely on 'preferences' – special tariff rates for selected goods. Unfortunately, these arrangements have not helped Caribbean economies diversify or strengthened their industries – the Caribbean exports less now than it did twenty years ago, and receives lower prices for those exports. Dependence on preferences is not a sustainable long term strategy for the region.

Also, because they were extended unilaterally by the EU to the Caribbean in a way that discriminates between Caribbean developing countries and developing countries elsewhere in the world the arrangements that the EPA replaces were not in conformity with WTO rules. In 2001, the EU and the Caribbean were given seven years by other WTO members to negotiate a new agreement that met WTO rules. That agreement is the Economic Partnership Agreement. Trade relations are now safe against legal challenge at the WTO by other developing countries.

To comply with WTO rules a trade agreement must open up “substantially all trade” between two partners. The CARIFORUM-EC EPA does this by immediately opening all markets on the EU side and gradually opening most markets on the Caribbean side. The EPA makes full use of the provisions in WTO rules that allow developing countries to exclude certain goods from liberalisation, to protect sensitive and emerging industries, and to use safeguards to guard against surges in imports.

What is in the EPA?

The CARIFORUM-EC EPA is a pioneering agreement in the international trading system. It is the first genuinely comprehensive North-South trade agreement that promotes sustainable development, builds a regional market among developing countries and helps eliminate poverty. It will put the Caribbean on the map as an expanding market where traders and investors can find opportunities for growth and security for their investments.

• At the centre of the Economic Partnership Agreement is the creation of an integrated regional market in the Caribbean. It promotes the progressive harmonisation of the external tariffs of the CARIFORUM countries building on the liberalisation of the flow of goods between the economies of the Caribbean. This will help local businesses create economies of scale and make the region much more attractive as a market for investment and trade.
• The EPA removes all tariffs and quotas on Caribbean exports to the EU immediately. The only exception is sugar and rice, which will be liberalised over short periods.
• The EU has also agreed to open up new markets for Caribbean companies and professionals to offer services in the EU and for young Caribbean professionals to gain EU work experience. These go far beyond anything offered by Europe in any other trade agreement.
• From the Caribbean side there is a gradual opening of markets over a period of 25 years, which will mean cheaper goods for consumers and businesses.
• Caribbean countries will now benefit from improved 'rules of origin' that will support the development of industries that import materials to make goods for onward export to Europe. This is important for industries such as processed food or fisheries that might import raw materials from outside the Caribbean.
• Beyond the 165 million Euros European Development Fund regional programme for the Caribbean, a development cooperation declaration in the EPA commits the EU to using its Aid for Trade financial support to help Caribbean countries implement the EPA.

Will Caribbean states be able to protect sensitive products and growing industries from trade competition?

The Economic Partnership Agreement contains considerable flexibility for the Caribbean region to exclude sensitive products and industries from liberalisation or to phase in liberalisation over many years. The coverage of goods liberalised by CARIFORUM countries under this Agreement amounts to 61% of EU imports in value over 10 years, 82% over 15 years (85% of tariff lines) and 86% over 25 years (90% of tariff lines).The main exclusions from tariff cuts are agricultural and processed agricultural products; some chemicals, furniture and other industrial products.

There are also provisions to protect and uphold environmental standards and workers rights, while guaranteeing the rights of Caribbean countries to regulate and manage their own affairs.

Will the EPA be supported with financial assistance from the EU?

The Caribbean EPA will be supported with financial assistance from the European Union Development Fund, in particular the regional programme which amounts to 165 million euro for the period 2008-2013. Funds will be used to help implement the EPAs, to build business development programmes, and to assist in the reform of the taxation system of the CARIFORUM countries.

EU-Caribbean Trade

EU trade with the Caribbean region amounted to more than EUR 6 billion in 2007. The EU exported EUR 3.275 billion to the Caribbean including ships and boats and machinery. Caribbean exports to the EU were worth nearly EUR 3 billion, including ships and boats, fuels, chemicals and agricultural products.

Community Single Market and Economy (CSME)

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Former Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur has warned regional leaders that now is not the time to procrastinate on the creation of the Caribbean Community Single Market and Economy (CSME) that is scheduled for full implementation by 2015.

Arthur, who has been a leading proponent of the CSME, is worried that further delay in finalising the economic component of the regional project would negatively affect the region’s ability to cope with globalisation and also hurt trade with other regions such as Europe, which has just finalised a new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the Caribbean.

“Failure to carry out regional economic and financial liberalisation, as contemplated under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (the CARICOM Treaty), will compromise severely the region’s capacity to take advantage of new economic partnership agreements with its major trading partners, or to fit the regional economy into the evolving global economy,” warned Arthur.

“The implementation of the provisions of the EPA and the completion of the work to make CARICOM a Single Market and Economy ideally are initiatives which must go hand in hand for both to be successful,” he added.

Addressing the 35^th Annual General Meeting of the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks here on Tuesday, the former Barbados Prime Minister acknowledged that the EPA, which governs future trade between Europe and the region, was not a perfect agreement.

He described it as a modern instrument of economic engagement and cooperation, which, if used properly, would allow the region to build new, competitive enterprises.

Arthur said Caribbean indigenous banks stood to benefit from the agreement.

However, he pointed out that in order to make full use of the new arrangements, financial institutions would have to deal with accreditation and other mutual recognition of qualification issues.

He also said that the cost of entry into the EU market and the requirement to assume a specific legal form may prove problematic, but added that failure to act in respect of the CSME would present even bigger challenges.

“The greatest challenge that the region may face in taking advantage of the provisions of the EPA may come not from these challenges, but from the region’s tardiness in putting its own house in order in respect to its regional initiative to become a single economy,” Arthur said.

Article 38 of the Revised Treaty makes provision for the removal of restrictions on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Services.

But the former prime minister said “it would now appear that the Regional Financial Services Agreement, like so much of the proposed arrangements to convert the region into a single economy, is now at large, clouded in doubt, and constrained by the inertia which regrettably seems now to be overtaking our regional affairs in increasing proportions.

“It was clearly understood that the removal of such restrictions is absolutely necessary to facilitate the growth of our financial institutions, the forging of strategic alliances, and to afford enterprises in the sector the ability to acquire the critical mass without which they will have difficulty competing at home and abroad,” Arthur said.

A total of 14 Caribbean partners signed off on the EPA in October. They are Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, along with the Dominican Republic.

Haiti is the only CARICOM member which did not sign the agreement. The country, which installed a new government shortly before the accord was signed in Bridgetown, had also been grappling with the impact of recent natural disasters.

Where are the churches?

Should we empower the churches once more, allowing them control the morality of our villages and towns?

Many societies around the world has turn to the churches to assist in the control and enforcement of morals, in places such as the US, Politic and religion finds a way to co-exist.

Guyana - The churches has to find a way to take back the power from the Government and assist in the development and growth of young people.

What gold should we be looking for?

The mining industry in Guyana is under the microscope around the world. Studies have shown that the mining processes and practices are actually harming the environment.

The environment is very important, but we need to do a study on the affects the mining industry has on the family structure and existence.

Husbands usually would leave the wife and family for a long duration of time, during that period the family structure is weaken and most women are forced to play double role. The men are sometimes exposed to prostitution and sexual diseases, which is sometimes brought back to the family...

The beauty of the Caribbean is meant to be enjoyed by tourist.

Why do you treat our fellow West Indians badly when they visit or homelands? They have been many complaints from Guyanese regarding the treatment they received from Barbadian Government officials. How does CARICOM play a role here?

The Caribbean has been the center of many vacationers, in fact many islands are dependent on the revenue that tourism brings, but I think we should take a step back and analyze who do we consider tourist and why our neighbors are not in that category.

Non-Americans and the Obama election.

During the two year span, I have seen a large number of immigrants devoting themselves to the election of Obama. My family in Atlanta, worked around the clock to get new voters to register and my wife and I have donated a large some of money along the way.

Do you think it's because he is a minority or is it because of his policies on Immigration?

I think the color of his skin, out-weighted his policies in respect to this election.