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Contact:
Virnet St. Omer-Fontenelle
Trinidad Hilton - Tuesday 9th November 2005 - The 10th Special Meeting of
the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community ended its first
day with a decision on a top agenda issue - to keep the 2005 deadline for the
implementation of the CARICOM Single Market.
All 15 member states of CARICOM have pledged to remove all remaining
restrictions to become CSME compliant. Prime Minister of Barbados and CARICOM's
lead minister on the Single Market and Economy, Honourable Owen Arthur said at a
press conference Monday night that he believed the Heads of Government had
achieved a lot. He said, “I do not want to overstate the accomplishments, but we
have achieved much when all 15 territories, including Montserrat, a country of
its circumstances announced it will be ready for the CSME by 2005.”
A major outcome on Monday was an agreement to move beyond the five categories of
workers to encourage greater mobility of people within the region. The Prime
Minister of Dominica, Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit has been given a mandate to
draw up the necessary instruments for the consideration of Heads of Government
when they meet in February of 2005.
Heads also agreed to set up the Regional Development Fund under article 158 of
the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. This is an area of tremendous interest to
countries like St. Lucia. The Barbados Prime Minister said, “If you're gonna
have the Caribbean islands function in the same economic space, an extraordinary
effort has to be made to lift up those on the lower rung of the development
ladder. Therefore, from the very outset of integration, one of the ancilliary
aspects, what we may call the policy infrastructure has been determined to bring
a regional development fund into existence... we have been working with the CDB
on how this fund will be structured and be made to come into existence to the
benefit of the region.”
The expectation is for all arrangements for the Regional Development Fund to be
accomplished by the time all member countries are at the stage of final
implementation of the Single Market.
Mr. Arthur said the 10th Special Conference had an ambitious agenda and at the
end of the first day, was satisfied that 15 separate economies had not relaxed
the timetable to fusing one single economy.
He said the region was doing what only Europe had done, and was doing so as
sovereign entitled, unlike Europe. He said since the process began, over 400
pieces of legislation have been removed between the 15 member countries to put
the Caribbean on the road to the 2005 goal for a Single Market
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