While a primary focus of the Common Market is on liberalizing trade in goods among members, the Single Market and Economy not only expands this process to include services but also provides for the free movement of capital, skilled labor and the freedom to establish business enterprises anywhere in the Community.

Speaking on the successful implementation of the free movement of people in the region during the Cricket World Cup, 2007, CARICOM Secretary-General H.E. Edwin Carrington says the Caribbean “have gotten a taste in a tangible way of genuine togetherness between February 1st and May 15th in the free movement of Community nationals during the Cricket World Cup.

The regime instituted by those ten member states led to relatively hassle-free travel among them for the Cricket World Cup. The process has won plaudits from our citizens who saw in the Single Domestic Space the realization of one of their cherished hopes, however briefly.”

Courtesy of CARICOM Secretariat Heads of States and Governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

The right that the CSME grants to any CARICOM national to establish a business in any member state and be treated as a national of that state is of particular importance. This complements the opportunities that the CSME will provide for greater cooperation among businesses to improve and increase the quality and quantity of goods and services they produce and to do so at better prices.

A single market for goods already exists among CARICOM member states, as more than 95 percent of the goods produced in the area move freely across the region. Therefore, to complete the Single Market, the immediate focus is the removal of restrictions on the right of establishment, the movement of services, capital and skilled labor. To complete the process, it is also necessary to enact new laws, create the appropriate institutions and adopt the relevant administrative and other helpful measures.

The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas requires harmonisation of policies, laws, and regulations; enhanced monetary cooperation and common external economic policies. The CSME in its totality establishes a single, seamless economic space and economic environment within which business and labour will operate. Its expected benefits include greater efficiency in private and public sectors, higher levels of domestic and foreign investment, increased employment, and growth of intra-regional trade and extra-regional exports.