Improving Negotiating Ability

Cayman Islands officials improved their international trade-negotiating skills during a workshop for overseas countries and territories.

Delegates attending the Trade Negotiation Skills Workshop also were briefed on strategies followed by officials in smaller economies. These strategies help them to maintain preferential trade arrangements with large trading blocs such as the European Union.

Offered by the Association of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTA), the workshop was held from 17 - 20 September in Brussels.

Leader of Government Business, the Hon. Kurt Tibbetts, JP, said the sessions were valuable for Cayman. He noted that OCT officials need to gain competencies in trade-negotiating skills, in order to help shape ongoing economic challenges.

These proficiencies also will help them to overcome problems that may be encountered in economic development at bilateral, multilateral or sectorial levels. They will prove particularly important in areas such as tourism; energy and transport, financial services; and regional negotiations.

"It is essential that the OCTs share their common interests, so that they do not have to lobby in isolation," Mr Tibbetts noted. "It is also cost-effective for OCTs when the OCTA initiates projects and conferences, which benefit all members."

The workshop was funded by the European Commission Services, following a request from OCTA.

Mr Tibbetts also said that Cayman's government looks forward to continuing its role in OCTA's development, and in the promotion of mutually beneficial and professionally run projects.

The Cayman Islands is vice chair of the OCT Ministerial Conference, OCTA's highest political body; it meets annually to discuss and agree on policy matters concerning the association. Cayman also is the secretary for OCTA's executive committee.

Cayman's delegates to the Brussels workshop were the Director of the Secretariat for the Portfolio of Finance and Economics, Ms Joanna Lawrence, and the secretariat's Senior Research Analyst Yainelys Ebanks; and the Cabinet Office's Policy Analyst Christina Rowlandson.

Ms Lawrence said that the highlight of the workshop was a role play, staged around negotiations between a government and an international oil business. She acted as the lead negotiator for the government team. Although the government and oil business were fictional, the subject of the negotiations was real, and real market indicators were relied upon, she said.

"The simulated negotiations were very intense and very real," she acknowledged. "We used all of the skills we learned in the first two days of the workshop."

Cayman's officials also quickly learned that all smaller economies face a similar set of challenges, she added. "We would do well to identify our common interests, and then work together to promote our common interests in the international marketplace."

The small number of participants attending the workshop allowed for genuine rapport to be established between the delegates and facilitators alike.

Workshop presenters/facilitators were Dr Anthony Clayton, professor of sustainable development at the University of the West Indies' Mona Campus; Ambassador Lingston Cumberbatch, project director of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries' Economic Partnership Agreement's programme management unit; and Dr Jean-Michel Salmon, a professor with the Department of Law and Economics at the University of the Antilles and Guyana, Martinique.

What is the OCTA?

The Association of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTA) of the European Union was established as a non-profit association in Brussels, Belgium, on 5 March 2003. Its objectives include providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and discussions of issues of common interest; working for the mutual benefit of OCTA members; sharing specific information on issues of interest and benefit to all OCTs; and sharing best practices among members in relevant areas.

For further information contact: Angela Piercy