The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

ESTABLISHING a Notification Authority in the Bahamas is a major step on the ladder to World Trade Organisation membership, Minister of Financial Services Ryan Pinder said yesterday.

Outlining the benefits of the move, Mr Pinder told participants at the opening day of a WTO conference at the British Colonial Hilton that such an authority would serve as a reference point for local importers.

If the plan to have the Bahamas ready to sign on to the WTO by the end of 2014 holds, Mr Pinder said, the Bahamas would become the 158th member of the organisation.

Membership would open the way to Bahamian products being sold in more than 150 countries, he said.

Mr Pinder said: “The establishment of an Enquiry Point / National Notification Authority, an international trade obligation, is an undertaking that we are obliged to execute on two fronts.

“Firstly, as a signatory state to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) the Bahamas has committed to establishing an enquiry point for matters related to sanitary.

“Secondly, the Bahamas is engaged in negotiations for accession to the World Trade Organisation. As members of the WTO, we will be required to have a more transparent and predictable trade regime, which will serve to benefit Bahamian consumers and businesses.”

Mr Pinder added that the government is also looking to initiate a Standards Bureau to objectively measure and monitor the quality of imports to the country.

“What the Standards Bureau will achieve is it will be an independent metric of standards in the country. So if you go to the US and you see USDA or USDB different quality types of ratings on their beef for instance, that is an objective of a Standards Bureau to provide, so the consumer is aware of the different standards.”

He said demand for such a bureau was sparked by concerns that inferior products were being sold in the Bahamas.

While the government has not assessed the overall cost of the bureau’s implementation, Mr Pinder said technical and financial assistance is available that could help alleviate the direct cost to Bahamians.