CAR­I­FO­RUM and EU of­fi­cials held their sec­ond EPA Trade and De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee in Trinidad and To­ba­go to dis­cuss progress in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment. "This meet­ing pro­vid­ed both sides with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take stock of de­vel­op­ments, re­view progress in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of EPA com­mit­ments and pre­pare the sec­ond meet­ing of the EPA's prime in­sti­tu­tion, the CAR­I­FO­RUM-EU EPA Joint Coun­cil," said Pe­ter Thomp­son, Di­rec­tor at the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion's DG Trade.

The Joint Coun­cil is set to meet on Oc­to­ber 26 in Brus­sels and brings to­geth­er CAR­I­FO­RUM Trade Min­is­ters, and their EU coun­ter­parts. Dur­ing the meet­ing, both sides ex­changed ideas on EPA im­ple­men­ta­tion in the main ar­eas cov­ered by the agree­ment, such as trade in goods, trade in ser­vices, trade-re­lat­ed rules, agri­cul­ture and de­vel­op­ment co-op­er­a­tion.

In ad­di­tion, they re­viewed progress to­wards the set­ting up of the oth­er in­sti­tu­tions un­der the agree­ment-the EPA Joint Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee and the Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tee-as well as to the set­ting up of a mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem. The EPA is a pi­o­neer trade and de­vel­op­ment part­ner­ship agree­ment signed be­tween the 15 CAR­I­FO­RUM coun­tries and the EU in 2008.

The EPA opens up the trade be­tween the par­ties, sup­ports Caribbean re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, en­hances the re­gion­al busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment and catal­y­ses de­vel­op­ment aid. The EPA will fos­ter eco­nom­ic ex­changes and in­vest­ment in or­der to con­tribute to growth, em­ploy­ment and de­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean re­gion.