EPA Review Annex Documents - DFID

expectation of increases in exports for tropical agricultural products (vegetables and
fruits), apparel and footwear.
7. Lessons learned
The EPA negotiations were atypical in many respects when compared to previous FTA
negotiations conducted by the DR. Its regional scope and requirements to coordinate
among 15 different CARIFORUM countries was a major hurdle to overcome, logistically
as well as culturally. However the DR tolerance to making the commitment in market
openings, in areas such as goods, services, investments, government procurement and
intellectual property tended to be higher than the CARIFORUM regional position. This
allowed for less friction at the time of incorporating a regional position for a country that
did not have a tradition of engaging FTA’s in a regional level.
From this stance, the institutional changes made by the DR in previous years, due to its
market opening commitments in other FTA’s allowed for more flexible positions when
coordinating a regional CARIFORUM position.
This contrasted with other CARIFORUM countries which had reservations in many
sensitive areas, such as revenue erosion (through import taxes), government
procurement commitments, as well as opening its services sector.
With the EPA the creation of a single market access offer in goods was the major
challenge. In this area the DR had the most concerns due to its diverse production in
agricultural goods was well as manufacturing. At the end, in most cases, the
sensitivities of the productive sectors were accommodated due to the initial parameters
and modalities agreed at the beginning of the negotiations. 127
The negotiations of the EPA also targeted the area of regional integration. In many
aspects this allowed the DR to better understand the CARIFORUM countries, its
institutions and key players, increasing the capacity to better engage the region in future.
The EPA also assisted in the logistic process and operative organisation of the private
sector and its engagement with public officials at the local level. The participation in the
actual rounds helped increase the interaction with the official negotiator and to better
understand the commitments in the agreement, inclusive prior the formal signature.
In addition, the EPA process assisted in increasing the interaction among the DR and
other CARICOM private sector officials. As a successful example of this arrangement of
the agreement to the region, the principal chamber of industry of the DR – Asociación de
Industrias de la República Dominicana – was awarded EU funds through PROINVEST,
to strengthen the institutional aspects of the association and regional integration. These
funds were awarded in conjunction with CAIC – the Caribbean Association of Industry.
This is the first joint project among these two important business associations of
CARIFORUM.
127 Long phase out periods, and the possibility to exclude sensitive products, as long as it this
flexibility was compatible with article XXIV of GATT.
176