On April 14 and 15 in Port-of-Spain, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, the ex­ec­u­tive arm of the EU, is host­ing a sem­i­nar for the Caribbean busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to help com­pa­nies make the most of the Car­i­fo­rum-EU EPA. The sem­i­nar will bring to­geth­er more than 70 busi­ness fig­ures from across the Caribbean with par­tic­i­pants from Eu­rope. They will ex­plore how to use the EPA's pro­vi­sions to ex­port more, se­cure greater out­side in­vest­ment, and there­by dri­ve growth and jobs in the Caribbean. "Sign­ing the EPA is good. Mak­ing the EPA work is bet­ter," said Pe­ter Thomp­son, Di­rec­tor for De­vel­op­ment and EPAs at the Trade Di­rec­torate-Gen­er­al of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion.

"We now have to turn the EPA in­to a re­al en­gine for gen­er­at­ing growth op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean. The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is one of the most vi­brant in the Caribbean.

"Trinidad and To­ba­go is al­so one of the Caribbean coun­tries where the Min­istry of Trade has al­ready tak­en the first steps to make the EPA op­er­a­tional. The pri­vate sec­tor plays the key role in this.

"That's why we've in­vit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Caribbean busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to Trinidad. Over the next two days we'll dis­cuss how these busi­ness­es can ben­e­fit from the EPA and boost Caribbean trade, wealth and jobs". Car­i­fo­rum coun­tries and the EU signed their Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (or EPA), a key trade and de­vel­op­ment part­ner­ship, in 2008. The EPA is de­signed to help spur growth across the Caribbean by en­abling busi­ness­es to ex­port more to the EU and with­in the re­gion. But Caribbean busi­ness­es and busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions are not al­ways aware of the EPA's con­tent or its po­ten­tial ben­e­fits.

The sem­i­nar's pur­pose is to help bridge that gap. On the first day par­tic­i­pants will learn more about the con­tent of the ac­cord, and how they can use it to boost their busi­ness­es' ex­ports to the EU, se­cure in­vest­ment from Eu­rope and in­vest in Eu­rope them­selves. They'll gain ad­vice from tech­ni­cal ex­perts about com­ply­ing with some of the most com­mon non-tar­iff mea­sures that Caribbean busi­ness­es face when ex­port­ing to the EU, such as stan­dards, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures, and rules of ori­gin. The sem­i­nar will al­so high­light EU re­sources avail­able to help Caribbean busi­ness­es ex­port more to Eu­rope, such as the Ex­port Helpdesk and EU de­vel­op­ment fund­ing. On the sec­ond day small­er work­shops will fo­cus on spe­cif­ic busi­ness sec­tors, cov­er­ing trade in both goods and ser­vices. Dis­cus­sions will fo­cus on agri-busi­ness (in­clud­ing ge­o­graph­i­cal in­di­ca­tions), man­u­fac­tur­ing, in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies (ICT), cul­ture and the arts, fi­nance and con­sul­tan­cy, and en­gi­neer­ing and ar­chi­tec­ture.

In each work­shop, par­tic­i­pants will ex­plore the EPA's po­ten­tial ben­e­fits for their re­spec­tive sec­tor, and the tools and fi­nanc­ing avail­able to help their busi­ness­es. Par­tic­i­pants will al­so in­clude of­fi­cials from both re­gions, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz and oth­er of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from a se­lect group of Eu­ro­pean com­pa­nies. The sem­i­nar's con­clu­sions will serve as in­valu­able in­put for the in­au­gur­al meet­ing of the Car­i­fo­rum-EU Trade and De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee, which is set to meet in the next few months. The com­mit­tee brings to­geth­er se­nior of­fi­cials from both re­gions to man­age and re­view im­ple­men­ta­tion of the ac­cord.