by Orita | February 3rd, 2009
Three years on, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) single trading market seems mired in stagnation.
The single market was launched in January 2006 and lauded as the vehicle to propel economies of member countries into a competitive era. But these days, it seems bogged down in recriminations and many have started to question the commitment of regional leaders to the enterprise.
These concerns would not have been helped by the abrupt cancellation of two important meetings of heads of government committees at the end of January. The reason cited by the Caricom secretariat was the unavailability of some leaders. The president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, is the only leader to publicly state that he was required elsewhere. He was due to join a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davis, Switzerland.
Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, said that the absence of some of his colleagues was not a good enough excuse to put back meetings to discuss progress on the single market. He said: "In my respectful view, I believe that the meetings should have gone on … because there are important issues which needed to be discussed well in advance of the conference of heads meeting in Belize."
The new dates are in March just before the annual first quarter Caricom summit.
Frustration
The Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, was perhaps the first among regional leaders to reveal publicly his frustration with the slow process of integration. In a speech last October, he blamed disinterest and resistance among other member states.
This was one of the reasons cited by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States for pursuing a formal economic – and possibly – political relationship with Trinidad and Tobago. In fact, Dr Gonsalves went so far as to cast doubt on whether the region can ever accomplish the single economy – the more difficult facet of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).
"The fact of the matter now is that the Caricom economic integration process is in a state of paralysis," Professor Norman Girvan, who authored a paper that helped set a roadmap toward the CSME, has said.
Dr Girvan said that there had been no progress on free movement of labour, one of the key plants of the trading market, since the 2008 summit. Also, he said no agreement had been reached on a governance procedure to ensure that decisions taken are actually implemented.
Immigration
Most of the stick regarding free movement has been aimed at Barbados, whose one-year-old Democratic Labour Party government has been pushing a 'Bajans first' employment policy. The lens have been particularly trained on immigration from Guyana, one of the world's most sparsely populated countries, to Barbados, which is among the most densely populated.
The Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson has insisted that his government is committed to Caribbean integration, and blamed some of the recent inertia on the fact that several governments had changed hands over the past 18 months. Last November, he told BBC Caribbean in an interview that integration movements always come under stress during times of economic turmoil.
Other commentators have also since suggested that the global downturn could indeed put a brake on momentum within Caricom.
"It is going to be very difficult for the CSME to survive as we would like it in this crisis," said Professor Michael Howard of the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. "I didn't have very much hope that it was going to be a vibrant organisation even without the crisis because of the problems of the Caribbean economy," he told the Sunday Sun newspaper.
Professor Howard went on to suggest that Caribbean economies were not complementary in a way which would enhance an integration movement.
On course
Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington has however insisted that the single market remains on course, despite the tough times. At an end of year press briefing, he said he felt "a certain measure of pride" with the 2008 accomplishments of the Community.
The Caricom Competition Commission was inaugurated a year ago in Suriname to ensure that trade was not only free, but fair, and the Caricom Development Fund, to aid the most undeveloped economies, was launched at the July summit.
Caricom's backers and critics will be anxious to see what it can achieve this year.
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