By: Janelle Charles

The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) was born out of a need to deepen the regional integration movement that had started in 1963 under the Caribbean Free Trade Area.

CARICOM came into being in 1973, with the 4 more developed countries of Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas.

In a 1974 Heads of Government meeting in St. Lucia the Less Developed Countries and Belize followed suite. The move came at a turbulent period in international economic history.

"An economic integration scheme gives your members a larger economic space, not only to do business inside that space but to also deal with the world outside," says Earl Huntley, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Under the CARICOM agreement - member states are able to trade freely with each other while receiving protection from goods coming outside CARICOM under the COMMON EXTERNAL TARIFF (CET).

CARICOM Member States

Over the past seven years trading among CARICOM countries has been dominated by Trinidad and Tobago. On average 20 percent of St. Lucia’s imports are from the region while 15 percent of local goods are purchased by CARICOM member states. In 1997 St. Lucia imported 191.5 million dollars in goods from CARICOM and Exported 25.3 million.

But it is CARICOM’s cooperation in non economic fields that is being hailed as the success story of the regional integration movement. The University of the West Indies and the West Indies Cricket Team are two of the more prominent examples of functional cooperation among CARICOM countries.

International forces are again demanding a deepening of the regional integration movement and CARICOM is responding to the pressures of globalization by introducing a Single Market and Economy.

According to Foreign Affairs Minister, George Odlum, "It is not even a question of whether or not a single market? The single market will be forced on us even if we don’t want it."