BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (Caribbean): Secretary General of CARICOM Edwin Carrington says that three Caribbean Countries -- Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago -- are compliant with the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), the Single Market element of which is expected to become a reality by the end of this year (2005).
Carrington sought to allay the concerns of those who have complained that the process is moving along slowly.
“…compare us with the big European Union, which started the integration process in 1957 (the Treaty of Rome) and arrived at a single market – the Marche Unique in 1992, that is, 37 years later. We are hoping to get there in 2005, that is 32 years later!” Carrington said as he delivered the opening address at a workshop on the CSME for CARICOM newspaper editors in Barbados last week.
In trying to put the speed of the process into proper perspective, Carrington reiterated that Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados has described the arrangements of the CSME as “unquestionably the most complex, the most ambitious and the most difficult enterprise ever contemplated in our Region.”
In light of this cry of slothfulness, Carrington gave a progress report as it were. He told the regional journalist gathered at the workshop that since CARICOM Heads of Government met in Suriname in February, several other countries have indicated their intention to be ready to implement what he described as “an especially important element of a the Single Market arrangement” – a CARICOM passport.
