CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque has expressed the community’s interest in the renewal of legislation for the extension of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) waiver beyond December 2019 to allow continued duty-free access to the US market.
According to a CARICOM press release, the Secretary-General made the case at an accreditation ceremony for the new US envoy to CARICOM, Sarah-Ann Lynch, at the Secretariat’s Headquarters in Georgetown, Guyana on Tuesday.
The CBTPA was implemented on October 5, 2000, and will expire on September 30, 2020.
LaRocque said the Region also welcomes greater flows of US investments in Agriculture, Tourism and Transportation. He went on to underscore the importance of cooperation in clean and renewable energy, and in security amidst increasing security threats in the current global environment. In that context, the Secretary-General said CARICOM looked forward to collaborating with the United States at the US-Caribbean Security Cooperation Commission in Barbados, and at the Eighth Caribbean-US High-Level Dialogue in Washington next month.
