The Tribune

A Cabinet Minister yesterday said the Bahamas was still on schedule to accede to full World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership by year-end 2014.

Speaking with Tribune Business, Ryan Pinder, minister of financial services, said: “We have our third working group meetings scheduled for the middle of November, during which we will give our updates.

“We are finalising all our technical work now to send to the WTO, who will send it out to the member countries and then we will have a series of negotiations and discussions and updates in Geneva at that time.”

Mr Pinder added: “We have some legislative initiatives we have to complete. We look to do our Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) legislation; our Intellectual Property legislation we need to get passed, We look to put in place a Standards Bureau, which is a requirement. These are activities which are still underway. Our tariff rate negotiations are still underway.”

Mr Pinder told Parliament last month that the Government’s second offer to the WTO provides for a 40 percentage point reduction in the average peak tariff on goods, noting that this nation’s goods and services offers in March 2012 were “extremely conservative” and “did not reflect the existing levels of liberalisation”.

The second goods offer provides for an average peak tariff of approximately 15 per cent, a reduction from 55 per cent, with protective tariffs being maintained in response to sensitivities on Bahamian production and associated job creation.

Regarding the accession timetable, Mr Pinder said: “We’re on schedule. We believe we are on schedule to be in a position by the end of 2014 to make the decision to accede.”