investment promotion

The primary objective of CARICOM’s agricultural policy as derived in article 56 of the revised treaty, which seeks “to effect a fundamental transformation of the agricultural sector of the Community by diversifying agricultural production, intensifying agroindustrial development,expanding agri-business and generally conducting agricultural production on a market-oriented,internationally competitive and environmentally sound basis.

The CRNM is encouraging the region's private sector to participate more fully in the current negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement, which will basically govern the trade between the most Caribbean States and the European Union. In this regard, the organization has prepared user friendly matrices which summarizes the positions in the EPA negotiations to date in the areas of market access in goods and services, trade facilitation, Investment and a broad area called trade related aspects (e.g., innovation, competition policy etc).

his paper is a work in progress and is a part of the tax harmonization exercise being pursued by CARICOM. This paper was prepared as a part of the U.W.I., Mona Post-Graduate 2003 internship program
for the Regional Tax Policy and Administration Unit of the CARICOM Secretariat, Guyana. Special thanks should be given to the Tax Advisor Ms Marva Lee for useful comments and to staff members of the
statistics section for support in data collection.

The current aim of CARICOM is to develop policies that encourage regional integration and transformation to the CSME. On the agenda to support the integration process is the full introduction of a tax harmonization framework. The harmful effects of tax competition have been the main stimuli for wanting to harmonize taxes. Tax structures and rates are important determinants for foreign and local businesses and consumers in deciding where to conduct investment operations.