Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Ken Baugh says within another month the region will decide on a date as to when talks will begin on the free trade agreement with Canada.

"At the last COTED meeting we had and the heads of Government meeting (in Belize), we approved the negotiating brief, it is a brief that was prepared by the Secretariat," Baugh said.

COTED is Caricom's Council for Trade and Economic Development.

"That has now been approved and is going to be sent to the heads of government to approve it. Once that is done then we will proceed to use that negotiating brief to guide our negotiations," he added.

Baugh said at the next COTED meeting a time frame would be set for the trade talks with the North American country.

Recommence talks

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who ended a two-day working visit in the island yesterday, urged the region to proceed with the talks.

"Let us resolve today to cut through the bureaucratic, diplomatic and political red tape and move forward on a CARICOM/Canada free trade agreement, let's get it done," he said while addressing a joint sitting of Jamaica's Houses of Parliament.

Talks with the Canadians have been on hold since last year October, when Canada requested that the first round of talks be rescheduled because the country was having a general election. Since then, a date has not been set. Yesterday, Baugh said the region was just as anxious as the Canadians to commence the talks.

"(Once) we have gone through the required process it will start. We are anxious on both sides to commence," he told Wednesday Business.

Baugh also sought to clarify statements made earlier in a JIS release that he had concerns about the trade talks.

"What I said is that what we are looking for is a trade and development agreement, not the usual free trade arrangement, but one with a develop-ment component that will build capacity in our countries to produce goods and build capacity for services so that we can take advantage of what we have from these large markets."

The region trades with Canada under CaribCan, where more than 80 per cent of Caribbean goods enter Canada duty-free.

This is, however, a non-reciprocal agreement, which means Canadian goods entering the region do not receive the same treatment.

Under World Trade Organisation rules, such non-reciprocal preferential agreements require a waiver, which for CaribCan has been extended to year 2011.

Development component

But Baugh warned that if a development component is not negotiated in the trade talks this would not be beneficial to the region.

"Even with the CBI and CaribCan, we did not benefit to the extent that we should because we are not producing enough goods to take advantage of the market," he said. "And we feel that these agreements should accommodate a facility whereby these industrial countries can assist us through technical assistance and through other strategies to help us to build those capacities."

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com