Impact Study: UNESCO-Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals

The budgetary opportunities offered by the EU and the EU Member States, especially if the EPA and the PCC are fully implemented, cannot be underestimated either and may attract newer creative entrepreneurial initiatives 40 . Creative goods trade is the largest source of flows between CARIFORUM and the EU. As would be expected given the relative size of the two Parties, trade imbalances persist with EU exports to the CARIFORUM region dwarfing imports. As Figure 2 illustrates, the trade deficit for the CARIFORUM region is in hundreds of millions. Indeed, the trade balance of creative goods in favour of European countries and in detriment of CARIFORUM States almost doubled from 2004 to 2014, with a slight reduction in 2015 and 2016. The slowdown in both exports and imports may be attributable to the global financial and economic crisis in 2007/2008, and the second dip may be associated with the rise of the digital economy and its impact on cultural trade, as well as the slowdown of the global economy in 2015 and 2016.

Figure 2 • CARIFORUM-EU Creative goods, Trade Balance, million US$

0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

-20

Million USD

-40

-

-60

-

-80

-100

-

-

-120

-

-

-

-

-

-

-140

-160

-

-

-180

Trade Balance

-200

-

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, International trade statistics database using COMTRADE data, 2019

40. See Jeetendra Khada and Inder Ruprah, Brexit and the Caribbean: Much Ado about Nothing, IDB Policy Brief IDB-PB-254, 2016; Mohammad Razzaque and Brendan Vickers, Post-Brexit UK-ACP Trading Arrangements: Some Reflections, Trade Hot Topics Issue 137, Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016.

54 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA