CARICOM in `forward march’ mood
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
February 15, 2007
KINGSTOWN --- The Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community concluded their 18th Inter-Sessional Meeting here yesterday in a "forward march" mood, determined to complete the framework arrangements in 2008 for a single economy.
Demonstrating collective optimism as they shared an end of conference media briefing that pointed to a concerted plan of action for this year's regular annual CARICOM Summit in July in Barbados, were the Prime Ministers of Barbados (Owen Arthur), St Vincent and the Grenadines (Ralph Gonsalves) and Trinidad and Tobago (Patrick Manning).
The community leaders are now driven by their unanimous acceptance of a key working document on a "single development vision" for the realisation of a single economic space in a phased process culminating by 2015.
Current CARICOM chairman, Prime Minister Gonsalves and incoming chairman and host for the July summit, Prime Minister Arthur, who has lead responsibility for CSME-readiness, will be engaged in a virtual co-chairmanship arrangement to systematically hasten implementation of decisions.
Major areas for action include a new model for effective governance that would include an administrative mechanism empowered with executive authority.
Others are:
** Creation of a US$250 million Caribbean Development Fund;
** more effective cooperation in the vital energy sector, for which Trinidad and Tobago has a major role to play, and for which Venezuela is also to be involved as the two regional suppliers of energy;
** Additionally, integrated production and marketing mechanisms for development of the agricultural sector; coordinated approaches on regional air and maritime transportation; crime and security.
To ensure widest possible involvement for phased implementation of the endorsed innovative features of the "single economy and a single development vision", a series of symposia will be launched across the community.
These would include the regional private sector, and specifically the Caribbean Business Council, the labour movement and civil society orgnisations -- ahead of the July CARCOM Summit in Barbados, according to Prime Minister Arthur, who commended the "single development vision" document as "a one hundred per cent Caribbean initiative" that was authored by the Jamaican economist, Norman Girvan.
Prime Ministers Manning and Arthur commended Prime Minister Gonsalves for his chairmanship of the three-day meeting, and concurred with their Vincentian counterpart as having been "very productive" and held in a "joyous spirit" that they intend to carry into the coming annual summit in Barbados and right through 2008 for implementation of the approved framework plan for the single economy.