CARICOM and Cuba have signed a trade agreement aimed at improving trade relations between Havana and the 15-member regional grouping.
The accord was signed in Guyana during the 45th meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) that ends today.
The new accord, signed by CARICOM Secretary-General, Irwin LaRocque and Cuba’s Ambassador to CARICOM, Julio César González, seeks to expand the preferential market access into each other’s market and signals the prospects for even stronger and more profound trade and economic ties.
The agreement offers “expanded preferential market access, notably, duty-free access, offered by Cuba to CARICOM countries on a list of approximately 326 items which include meat, fish, dairy produce, fruits and vegetables, beer, rum, cement, soaps, articles of apparel and clothing.
There are approximately 50 items on which immediate duty-free access will be granted, and a list of 22 items on which differentiated treatment, including phased reduction of duty, which CAR1COM more developed countries will grant to Cuba.
Products included in the CARICOM duty-free offer to Cuba are fish, pharmaceutical products, fertilizers, articles of iron and steel, electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof.
