The Report, published on December 31 last year says that while the liberalization of its trade and investment regimes are important to the enhancement of the country’s integration into the global economy, Guyana continues to take only “halting steps” in that direction.
According to the Report Guyana must also make “further efforts to increase its competitiveness while also seeking to diversify its production and export base.”
Meanwhile, the report says that the intellectual property of foreign companies investing in Guyana continues to be vulnerable to a less than adequate local legal framework for the protection of intellectual property and a deficient institutional capacity to enforce existing laws. “Despite repeated promises to update legislation to protect the intellectual property of foreign companies in Guyana, the current laws on copyrights and patents date from colonial times. Unauthorized use of music and video products is widespread and local television stations, including those run by the government, routinely transmit copyright-protected material without proper licensing,” the report says.
The Report by the Office of the US Trade Representative notes that the outcomes of Guyana’s Trade Policy Review in July 2009 had reflected an improved economic performance since the previous Review undertaken in 2003. It alludes to “significant reform efforts in various areas including tax and investment regimes, competition policy and government procurement.” It notes too that Guyana has demonstrated “a general commitment” to undertaking its obligations under the WTO Agreement citing the country’s support for an early and successful Doha Development Round with a “balanced development-oriented outcome” that focuses on preferences and special and differential treatments for developing countries.
The Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983 allows the US President to grant conditional duty-free treatment for certain eligible imports into the United States from Caribbean Basin Initiative–beneficiary countries. In order to qualify for such duty-free access, products must be imported directly from a CBI-beneficiary country or be substantially transformed into a new and different article in that country. Additionally, the product must contain a minimum of 35 per cent local content of one or more beneficiary countries.
In 2008, the last complete year for which the report provides statistics for Caribbean/US trade under the CBI arrangement, the total value of US imports from CBI countries reached US$19.6 billion, an increase of US$6 billion from 2007. In recent years US exports to the region have also benefited from trade expansion resulting from the CBI programme. In 2008 total US exports to the region reached US$25.1 billion, making the CBI countries the 14th largest market for US exports.
Under the CBI arrangement Trinidad and Tobago was the leading Caribbean Community (CARICOM) source of US imports in 2008. Under CBI preferences the US imported US$1.9 billion from that country, a decrease of 24.6 per cent from 2007. Imports into the United States from Trinidad and Tobago under CBI preferences are dominated by petroleum and methanol which accounted for close to 90 per cent of such imports under CBI provisions. During 2008 US imports of petroleum from Trinidad and Tobago decreased in value despite higher average prices mainly because of a decrease in the volume of petroleum imports while US imports of methanol increased mainly because of higher prices. According to the report Jamaica’s exports to the US under CBI preferences grew by 35.5 per cent to US$320m in 2008 mainly on the strength of fuel-grade ethanol exports. Among the smaller countries in the region frozen orange juice, electrical machinery and cane sugar were among the leading categories of CBI-preference imports in 2008.
While the CBI was initially envisioned as a programme designed to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies the value of US exports to CBI countries rose by 19.9 per cent in 2008 over the previous year. “Collectively, at US$35.1 billion the CBI region………absorbed 1.9 per cent of total US exports to the world,” the Report says. Last year, The Bahamas and Jamaica were the principal regional markets for US exports accounting for 75 per cent of the exports to the CBI region. In 2008 the leading categories of US exports to the region included refined petroleum products, semiconductors, corn, jewellery and aircraft.
Between January and August last year US exports to Guyana totalled US$169.3m compared with US$189.6m for the same period in 2008. In 2008 the US recorded a US$142,579,120 surplus in trade with Guyana.
