In Castries, Saint Lucia, on 22 March 2019, the United Kingdom and the CARIFORUM States sign the Economic Partnership Agreement between the CARIFORUM States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The depositary is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the languages are English, French and Spanish.

The agreement replicates, post-Brexit, the EU–CARIFORUM EPA framework that governed UK–Caribbean trade while Britain was an EU member (from 2008). At the ceremony the United Kingdom and nine CARIFORUM countries sign; other parties join later, including Suriname (4 March 2021). Haiti remains eligible if it signs and brings the EPA into effect.

The EPA grants immediate duty-free, quota-free access for CARIFORUM exports to the UK and gradual liberalisation of tariffs on UK goods, with protection for sensitive sectors. It also covers services, intellectual property and government procurement.

It takes effect on 1 January 2021, when the United Kingdom leaves the EU customs union and single market for good. It forms part of Britain’s trade-continuity strategy with developing countries after Brexit.

The parties include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti (eligible), Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom.

The CARIFORUM–UK Economic Partnership Agreement of 22 March 2019 remains the instrument that preserves Caribbean–London trade preferences after Britain’s exit from the EU.

Image: Caribbean; Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: CARIFORUM–United Kingdom Economic Partnership Agreement. Treaty text: CARIFORUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement (GOV.UK).