By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor:


The US government has accused Bahamian police officers of being "complicit" in the pirated/counterfeit goods trade, and branded this nation's enforcement of intellectual property rights laws as "lax".

The US Trade Representative's Office, in its newly-released report on the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), which the Bahamas benefits from, said Bahamian laws did provide for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

"However, enforcement is lax and anecdotal evidence suggests that the police are complicit in the buying and selling of pirated movies, songs and fabricated high-end purses to residents and tourists," the US Trade Representative's Office wrote in the report.

No substantive evidence was provided to support the allegation, which is likely to anger both the Government and the hierarchy of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Yet since the US Trade Representative's Office is part of the US government, the report represents the official view of the Obama administration. The US Embassy in Nassau is also likely to have provided its input into the report, and possibly reviewed drafts before it was officially released on New Year's Eve.

Intellectual property rights, or copyright, are designed to guard the 'fruits of the mind', protecting creators such as artists, musicians and designers from having their works exploited and sold by others for their gain, without them enjoying any economic benefit/compensation.

Intellectual property rights are also key components in free trade agreements, such as the Economic Partnership (EPA) the Bahamas has already signed up to, and full membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - something this nation hopes to achieve within the next three to four years.

It thus appears highly likely that the Bahamas will have to further tighten its intellectual property rights legislation and enforcement, the US Trade Representative's report saying: "The Bahamian government has taken some steps to strengthen intellectual property rights protection as part of its WTO accession, and in response to requests from the United States."

On the WTO front, the US Trade Representative's Office said the Bahamas' Memorandum of Trade Regime had been circulated among WTO members in April 2009. They "were asked to review it and submit questions and comments on the Bahamas' trade regime".

The report said that of the $465.823 million worth of goods exported to the US by the Bahamas in the period January-August 2009, some 13.3 per cent or $62.16 million entered tariff-free under the preferences provided by the CBERA and its subsidiary agreement, the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI).

These figures represented a drop on the 2008 comparative period, when $93.472 million or 27.9 per cent of a total $334.497 million worth of goods exported to the US by the Bahamas entered under the CBERA.

For the eight-month period January-August 2009, some 41 per cent or $190.832 million worth of Bahamian exports also entered the US duty-free, compared to $197.476 million or 59 per cent of exports for the same period in 2008.

The US Trade Representative's Office's report also noted that US exports to the Bahamas for the eight months to January 2009 had fallen by 18.6 per cent, from $1.895 billion the year before to $1.542.2 billion, the more than $300 million drop likely to have been induced by the recession.

Overall, for the 2008 full year, the Bahamas exported some $603.935 million worth of products to the US, of which $141.048 million or 23.4 per cent entered the US duty-free under the CBERA. The main beneficiaries from the Act's trade preferences were Bahamian crawfish, Polymers' plastic products, salt, fruits and vegetables.

In that same year, the US exported some $2.76 billion worth of goods and services to the Bahamas.

Elsewhere, the US Trade Representative's Office said it would "continue to monitor" the Bahamas' implementation of its 2004 amendment to the Copyright Act, which took effect on October 1, 2009.

This amendment narrowed this nation's compulsory licensing system for television when it came to the re-transmission of copyrighted works, preventing Cable Bahamas from distributing such programmes without having commercial agreements in place with the copyright owners.

The US Trade Representative's Office's report also said "a high level of child labour continues to be a concern" in the Bahamas, while workers had "no legal right to remove themselves from hazardous work situations without penalty".

January 05, 2010

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