Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that while countries across the region have been successful at the
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves
Caricom Single Market (CSM), they are yet to reach the “economy” aspect of that accord.
Gonsalves, in an invited comment on Monday evening, told Guyana Times more still needs to be done by regional countries in terms of their tenacity and speed to see the full realisation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME). Guyanese over the years have been humiliated by immigration officials in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. Similar treatment has been meted out to citizens of Jamaica and some of the smaller Caribbean islands.
Gonsalves, while acknowledging this, said Guyana remains a pillar in the community of the CSME, noting that “the issue is that everybody has benefited from the Caribbean Single Market but has not reached the economy as yet.”
According to him, many of the issues are in order, including trade, and the free movement of people and capital. However, he noted that progress for many of these countries “is not moving as fast as we would want it to be but we accept the independent community of states and we have to persuade those who are a little slower to catch up with all the institutional arrangement in place.”
Gonsalves said “I am not a pessimist, I see a number of things coming out of CSME, sometimes I myself am a little disappointed at the slow pace, but I don’t allow it to frustrate me.”
CSME is an integrated development strategy envisioned at the 10th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community which took place in July, 1989 in Grand Anse, Grenada.
The Grand Anse Declaration has three key features including the deepening of economic integration by advancing beyond a common market towards a single market and economy, the widening of the membership and expansion of the economic mass of the Caribbean Community and the progressive insertion of the region into the global trading and economic system by strengthening trading links with non-traditional partners.
The CSME was implemented through a number of phases, first being the Caricom Single Market (CSM). CSM was initially implemented on January 1, 2006 with the signing of the document for its implementation by six original member states. However, the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the CSME had been provisionally applied by twelve member states of Caricom February 4, 2002 under a Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Nine protocols had been drafted to amend the original Treaty of Chaguaramas and had been consolidated into the revised treaty signed at Nassau in 2001, with a number of the protocols having been applied in part or in full from their creation in 1997 and 1998, including the provision on the Free Movement of Skilled Nationals.
As of July 3, 2006, the CSME had 12 members. Although the CSME has been established, in 2006 it was expected to be fully implemented in 2008.
Later in 2007, a new deadline for the coming into effect of the single economy was set for 2015; however, following the global 2007-08 financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession, in 2011, Caricom Heads of Government declared that progress towards the single economy had been put on pause.
The completion of the CSME with the single economy will be achieved with the harmonisation of economic policies, and possibly a single currency.