By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The private sector yesterday urged the government to give it "a sense of direction" over its WTO accession plans since the June 2020 target date was clearly "not achievable".

Darron Pickstock, who heads the Chamber of Commerce's trade and investment division, told Tribune Business it wants to gain an understanding of the government's "intent" and likely next steps in advancing The Bahamas to full World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership when it next meets with the Cabinet minister overseeing the process.

Disclosing that the chamber hopes to meet with Elsworth Johnson, newly-appointed minister of financial services, trade and industry and Immigration, within the next fortnight, Mr Pickstock agreed that the June 2020 accession target was unattainable "from a practical viewpoint" given the sheer scale of the remaining reforms The Bahamas has to implement.

While noting that the government had not changed its policy objective of taking The Bahamas into full WTO membership, even though the pace of accession may have slowed, the chamber executive reiterated previously-expressed concerns that it could lose "the impetus for reform" without such deadline pressure to drive it.

Mr Pickstock added that proceeding rapidly with reforms to improve the ease and cost of doing business was essential regardless of whether The Bahamas joined the WTO or not, as this was key to improving the economy's long-term competitiveness and growth prospects.

Speaking after Mr Johnson last week confirmed that the June 2020 accession target was "purely aspirational", and not set in stone, Mr Pickstock said the minister's comments reflected the reality of where The Bahamas stands in the process to join world trade's governing body.

"I guess the minister's comment was made in that it's apparent we're not going to make the June 2020 deadline," he told Tribune Business. "Based on the amount of stuff that has to be done, and with this minister just recently being appointed and even before him, when Mr Symonette was there, it appears that date will not be achievable from a practical viewpoint.

"It is nothing more than that. The minister will have to sit down with his technical team and, based on the government's strategy, determine and decide what happens. From what I recall from the previous minister, the government was in full support of The Bahamas joining the WTO and setting a deadline."

Mr Symonette told this newspaper in late 2017 that the Minnis administration had taken a policy decision to complete The Bahamas' now-18 year bid to become a full WTO member, and was seeking to complete the negotiation process by December 2019. This would allow the country's accession to be ratified at the next full WTO meeting in June 2020.

While this timeline may now be impossible to hit, Mr Johnson last week told this newspaper that The Bahamas would proceed with the WTO accession process at a "pace" best suited to this country's needs.

"No one has communicated to me, the [Chamber's] chairman and chief executive that the Government is no longer interested in moving ahead to become a member of the WTO," Mr Pickstock said yesterday. "Dissecting the minister's comments, he's not saying that either.

"It will be interesting when we meet with the minister to get further clarification on the timing and what his expectations are with how we move forward with the accession process. It will be at that point we will know if the Government is continuing on with the work done so far, which is a great deal of work.

"We're trying to work out a meeting date within the next two weeks to discuss with the minister the next steps, and what the Government's plans are moving forward. We just want to get a sense of direction so we know exactly what the Government's intentions are, what the next steps will be, whatever is the timeline, and if the Government is proceeding in the fashion where it was preparing to accede and become a member of the WTO."

Mr Pickstock said many Bahamians did not realise "how much is involved" in readying the country to become a member of the WTO's rules-based trading regime. It has to implement numerous legislative reforms, such as overhauling its intellectual property rights regime, plus enacting competition legislation and creating a watchdog to oversee this.

Other changes require perfecting a "rules of origin" regime; implementing sanitary and phytosanitary measures; and creating a National Investment Act to translate existing policy into statute. The Chamber executive said WTO member states were still reviewing this nation's legislative and investment regime, and seeking clarification on how they work, before The Bahamas began full negotiations with them.

And, besides its domestic agenda, The Bahamas also has to negotiate which import tariff rates it will lower - and by how much - and which industries will be opened to foreign competition with the WTO working party overseeing talks on its accession.

The Working Party consists of member states who have an interest in trading with The Bahamas. These include the likes of the US, Canada, the European Union (EU), China, the UK, members of CARICOM and, possibly, Latin American nations such as Brazil.

Mr Pickstock, meanwhile, reiterated concerns that the Government's will to enact desperately-needed economic reforms could be lost without the pressure created by the need to meet a WTO accession deadline.

"I would say regardless if we join or not, the Government still needs to continue that momentum in looking at our investment regime and our economy and making decisions to modernise the legislation and make progress in that regard," he told Tribune Business.

"The Oxford Economics report did speak to that, modernising our economy and trying to take advantage of low hanging fruit and making some advancements - whether outside the WTO regime or not.

"While that report spoke to the WTO, it spoke more to the things we needed to be doing as a country to move the economy in the right direction. It's my hope, and the hope of the Chamber, that the Government - as it reassesses WTO and think about the next steps - we would urge them to continue on with the reforms necessary to move the economy in the right direction."

Mr Pickstock acknowledged that WTO accession was viewed as the "impetus to move the Government to make the necessary reforms that are required to set the economy on track". He added: "If you take that impetus away there are concerns it will slow the reforms down.

"As a country we were looking at these reforms, and starting to make them and modernise legislation, so we hope that momentum continues."