CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

Notwithstanding the relatively limited opportunities that are available for direct services sector participation by foreign services providers, based on the proportional contribution of imported services to UK economic activity, there are potentially greater opportunities for CARIFORUM to supply of services to the UK’s manufacturing and industrial based sectors, which are not only highly reliant on services inputs, generally, but also involve a much greater degree of foreign content than the purely services based activities. This was particularly so in relation to the proportion of services rendered by foreign services providers in the production of Other Transport Equipment, Motor Vehicles, Trailers and Semi-trailers, Basic Metals, Electrical Equipment and Computer, Electronic and Optical Products, which rounded out the top five sectors open to foreign participation, and suggests that there is some immediate scope for value chain penetration by CARIFORUM States, with much less resistance. Given the recognition that the manufacturing and industrial sectors offer better prospects for the participation of CARIFORUM services providers, however, it should also be noted that the top five such sectors in which there was a high relative demand for services inputs, irrespective of source, were in the production of (excluding motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers) Food, Beverages and Tobacco, Basic Metals (e.g. bauxite/aluminium), Other Non-metallic Mineral Products (e.g., limestone), Paper Products and Printing, and Chemicals and Pharmaceutical Products, in which the region currently has some amount of active productive capacity and is, thus, more capable of providing related services to the UK in the medium to longer term, with the aid of targeted value chain penetration strategies. It must be borne in mind, however, that CARIFORUM’s level of participation in UK value chains is likely to be constrained by distance, cross-border regulatory frictions and other factors between the two sides, which may play a determining role in how effectively CARIFORUM services providers are able to penetrate both the UK’s services and productive sectors.

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