Trade and Development Nexus: reflections on the performance of trade in goods under the Cariforum-European Union Partnership agreement a Cariforum perspective

Given the asymmetry in the levels of development and capacity which exist between the EU and
CARIFORUM States, the architects of the CARIFORUM-European Union (EU) Economic
Partnership Agreement (EPA)1 anticipated the need for review and monitoring of the impacts of
implementation. Article 5 and other provisions in the Agreement therefore specifically mandate that
monitoring be undertaken to ensure that the Agreement benefits a wide cross-section of the population
in member countries.
The paper seeks to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of the EPA on
CARIFORUM countries. In so doing, it highlights some critical information and implementation gaps
and challenges that have emerged during the implementation process. The analysis however, is
restricted to goods trade. The services sector will be the subject of a separate report.
The paper draws on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. While the paper
undertakes a CARIFORUM-wide analysis for the most part, five CARIFORUM member states
including Barbados, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia are
examined more closely in some instances. These economies were selected by virtue of economic
structure and development constraints, as a representative subset of CARIFORUM, which comprises
the CARICOM membership as well as the Dominican Republic.