The Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) is expected to be implemented in the Caricom region by December 2005 but there is still a lot of work to be done.

The bringing together of the resources of the region to produce quality products and services for local consumption and export to the outside world to earn hard currency for the people within the Caribbean Community and the freedom of nationals of the Caribbean Community (defined as the West Indies with the addition of Haiti) to work and live in any member state, must certainly have been the intention of Norman Manley, Eric Williams, Grantley Adams, Robert Bradshaw and the other founding leaders of regional integration.

The Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) is the vehicle designed to achieve the historical objective of uniting and fortifying the islands of the Caribbean and the mainland territories of Suriname and Guyana.

The formal decision to fashion the CSME was taken at the 1989 Heads of Government meeting at Grand Anse in Grenada. It has been a long and sometimes frustrating road to the implementation in December 2005; and the work is far from being completed.

However, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados have committed to being ready by the start of 2005, ahead of the CSME implementation date.

Free Movement

Already, certain countries have begun to allow the first category of Caricom nationals: "free movement". Under the CSME, university graduates, media workers, sports people, musicians, artists, managers, supervisors are allowed to work and live with their families without the need for work permits.

Nothing new for Caribbean peoples, who from the Caribs, Tainos and other Amerindian tribes, moved amongst the islands as they pleased, the CSME makes it legal for the higglers to trade among Caricom states.

In accordance with such free movement, comes the right of non-nationals of a country to have equal access to lands, buildings and other property in the Caricom country in which they are residing.

"Hassle-free" travel is another of the requirements of the CSME to allow citizens of member states to cross national borders with only a travel permit and in some cases, an Inter-Caribbean Travel document. The "Caricom Residents" lines at immigration ports are almost everywhere.

Vital to the operations of the CSME is the freedom of investors to move human and physical resources to the points of production.

In turn, there are no import duties on goods of Caricom origin; so too will all tariffs and quantitative restrictions be removed in all member states, treatment that will be different from goods and services produced outside of CSME countries.

The free movement also refers to capital and investment by business people and by individuals wanting to transfer bank notes, cheques and electronic transfers.

The makings of a robust regional Stock Exchange have started with the cross-listing of companies. And if there have been technical difficulties to achieve the common Caricom currency as envisaged, provisions are to be made for the easy convertibility of national currencies in member states.

These measures are designed to allow firms to have region-wide access to capital markets at competitive rates to make the productive sectors more competitive and to ultimately prevent the exploitation of consumers.

"The result is a common space and harmonized investment area with free access to markets," being the intention, states the documentation produced by the Caricom Secretariat.

Under the CSME arrangements business people will enjoy the benefits of producing for approximately 14 million people instead of their own national markets, as small as 10,000; the possibility therefore to enhance and foster intra-regional trade.

Caribbean Court

The establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as an arbiter in economic disputes among participants in the CSME is a pre-requirement. It is the CCJ that will have the responsibility "to ensure that the law is observed in the interpretation and applications of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas" that is the legal base upon which the CSME will function.

Recently, Desiree Field-Ridley, the head of the Caricom office on the implementation of the CSME expressed optimism that the legal and administrative framework would be ready for the 2005 operationalisation date; and, she is optimistic notwithstanding the hundreds of laws and administrative policies that have to be reformed and harmonized.

"A legal team provided by the Secretariat is assisting member states with the reform and harmonization of the laws for the CSME," said Field-Ridley.

She admits however that sufficient is not being done at the political level: "more people need to be aware of the CSME and its potential benefits; people need to push their political representatives to take action to implement the CSME."

Professor Norman Girvan, formerly Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States and long-time economic theorist on integration is not so hopeful on implementation.

"Based on that information (a February update on the website of the CARICOM Secretariat), I estimate that fully two-thirds of the actions required to give effect to the CSME are still pending or incomplete," stated Professor Girvan in a Trinidad-based monthly journal.

He is recommending a partial implementation of the CSME along the lines of specific sectors. The recent proposal for cooperation amongst Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Guyana to combine their natural resources of bauxite, alumina and natural gas to produce finished aluminum, is one such example of partial implementation of the CSME.

Growth and Benefits

Whether or not the CSME is implemented on time and in full, even independent commentators such as Anoop Singh, Director of the Western Hemisphere of the International Monetary Fund, notes that integration of the productive resources of the Caribbean must bring benefits. He said there is precedent for such possibilities.

"Researchers have found that intra-regional trade within the Asian group of countries explains a significant proportion of total growth," said Singh. "And so I believe that in this region too, as you expand markets and trade in goods and services, that in itself will help growth in the region," said the IMF economist.

"The CSME must be the base for CARICOM survival in the globalised world of trade," is the stark characterization of Trinidad and Tobago's trade minister Ken Valley.

Notwithstanding the logic and optimism for the CSME bringing benefits, there are outstanding concerns amongst the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States that fear the loss of customs revenues with the removal of tariffs and small producers feeling that they would be swamped by producers in the More Developed States.

Then there is another kind of protest that comes from opposition political parties that agree to implementation of the CSME while in office and oppose the closer integration having been removed from government.

In Jamaica and in several bar associations around the region there is continuing opposition to the replacement of the British Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final arbiter in legal matters.

Next month's CARICOM Summit in Grenada, where the initial decision was taken to establish the CSME, will be faced with progress reports on implementation and the possible refocusing of the integration movement to achieve the goals.

Submitted by
Tony Fraser