'We will all live to regret it', Professor Girvan warns that EPA could widen inequalities among Caricom states

LEADING Caribbean scholar of the political economy, Professor Norman Girvan, has said the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the CARIFORUM group and the European Commission could create wide inequalities among Caricom member states and fragment the Community.

Addressing the closing session of the ninth annual Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Friday evening, Girvan called the EPA "an agreement we will all live to regret at a time not too far into the future".

The EPA, which was brokered last December, gives Caribbean countries duty and quota free access in goods (with the temporary exception of rice and sugar) and services to EU, and is supposed to be the replacement for preferential trade agreements.

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