CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

4.9 Summary of Findings

CF economies are relatively open economies, being heavily dependent on trade, as is the UK economy. This places CF economies, as with most open economies, in a position to grow faster and provide opportunities for its people. Greater integration into the world economy can help to drive economic growth and reduce poverty if the fundamentals are right. However, there still remain challenges such as low levels of connectivity, transport costs, customs and logistics challenges, that impose additional costs both directly and indirectly on CF exports. Additionally, there is a low level of diversification and there are capacity and macroeconomic issues in these countries that impact on trade performance. In addition, CF exporters may face regulatory and other non-tariff barriers in the importing market (discussed below). In a situation where tariffs and quantitative restrictions, in the context of the CF-UK EPA, are not major factors, the regulatory and other constraints become critical to these countries’ ability to harness the benefits of increased market access. Additionally, in a context where there are similar regional arrangements on similar market access terms, the opportunities may present themselves at the margins of these differentials. Given the trends in merchandise and in particular the dominant products exported in 2020, these make sense in the context of a pandemic, most notably, in the area of Food and organic chemicals . This suggests an area for further integration into value chains, and the opportunity for greater value added. This is especially so the role of services are taken into consideration. The intersection of the characteristics of UK import demand, particularly looking at the Top 30 import products as against the dominant CF exports suggests that there are opportunities for CF exporters to take advantage of these trends, particularly organic chemicals, chemicals, vegetables and fruit and fuel.

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