FINANCIAL BUSINESS ANALYST JERRY BLENMAN is suggesting that companies take advantage of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in groups as opposed to individual companies in order to see the benefits.
The EPA is a trade agreement that governs trade between the European Union (EU), its member states and African, Caribbean and Pacific States.
“There are a number of issues that need to be attended to and best attended to from a sectorial perspective. It is going to be quite challenging for individual companies and emerging businesses to truly trade in the way that they want to trade based on the EPA.
“I think a necessary part of our planning process going forward is to look at clusters, a group of persons trading in the global market. When you look at the provisions for trade and the market that you are about to enter, size really is a major issue,” he said.
Blenman was delivering the University in The Community lunch-time lecture at the Central Bank on Wednesday on the topic Change Forecasting and Management: Aligning for Sustained Economic Growth.
He told the handful who attended that “the best mode in which to explore the whole globalization formula” was through the use of technology and future planning. He said, however, that willingness was missing.
“The business-will to advance the ideals of the EPA is still lacking . . . I think more discussions would be necessary to understand the impact of entry into new markets and how to enter those markets – not as individual companies, but as collective sectors and clusters,” Blenman said.
The Caribbean and Europe signed the EPA almost three years ago. (MM)
