The people who live on the scattered islands and territories known as the Caribbean have always had a dream of economic integration and are now poised to realize that dream. In 1973, under the Treaty of Chaguaramas, the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) was born. “While the idea of community remains central to integration, the Common Market has today taken on an entirely different dimension,” states Ambassador Ellsworth John, chairman of the Conference of the Caribbean’s major organizing body, the Washington-based CARICOM Caucus of Ambassadors.

The ambition now is to build out of fifteen separate national economies a single, integrated, globally competitive modern market economy within an economic space referred to as the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). As Ambassador John explains, “This is made possible through learning from CARICOM countries’ individual economic successes attained during the second half of the last century as well as from their collective experiences at regional integration over the past thirty years.”
Ambassador John notes that in its architecture and functioning, the CSME will be second only to the European Union but without such centralized political institutions as the European Commission and European Parliament.

Structure of the CSME to mature in December 2008
The CSME was negotiated by the Caribbean countries under two main economic branches, the Single Market and the Single Economy. “While the whole structure that is the CSME will fully mature in December 2008, the journey has an important pit stop and that involves the free movement of goods, services, skills and capital and the freedom of Caribbean nationals to set up businesses anywhere within the CSME without restrictions. This process began on January 1, 2006,” said Ambassador John.

“The CSME is being implemented in one of the most politically stable and increasingly prosperous parts of the world,” located just south of Florida and wedged between the giant markets of North and South America. Geographically, the CSME brings together the rich island traditions of the Windward and Leeward islands, with the continental flair of Belize to the north in Central America and Guyana and Suriname south of the Caribbean in South America.

Bringing this mix of countries into the CSME puts into one economic system: oil and natural gas; gold; bauxite; a wealth of marine resources; fertile agriculture land; some of the world’s most beautiful tourist destinations; a highly literate population; and to create the foundations for an attractive location for business and commercial opportunities.

“The Single Market was opened for business in early 2006 and already some of its pivotal institutions are up and running, including a Caribbean Court of Justice, with its headquarters in Trinidad and Tobago and the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality headquartered in Barbados. The Commission for Competition is to have its headquarters in Suriname” says Ambassador John.

He indicates that after each country has reformed its immigration laws under the agreements relating to free movement of skills, people in certain categories of occupations with specific skills can live and work wherever they choose outside their country of birth or nationality. This, the ambassador says, is being reinforced by a common system for the transfer of social security benefits and a CARICOM passport.

“A simple definition of the CSME would be: a single seamless economic space where CARICOM populations can conduct business as though they were operating in a single country. Under the new rules, CARICOM nationals from any one member state must be treated in every respect for the purposes of business as the nationals of the member state where they choose to reside or do business.”

Scope of the Single Economy broader than the Single Market
The Single Economy is much broader in scope and commitments than the Single Market since it involves agreements, rules and procedures for cooperation in areas such as monetary, fiscal, exchange rates and sectoral policies by the member states. Despite this, the building blocks for the Single Economy are now being laid down with such instruments as the CARICOM Investment Agreement, the CARICOM Investment Code, and the Financial Services Agreement and with work in progress on a Single Stock Exchange. “These, together with the other instrumentalities for operating a single economy in a multilateral framework are required to be completed by the end of 2008,” notes Ambassador John.

“The excitement of the Single Market that opened for business early in 2006 has energized the professions and service companies within CARICOM to meet the competition. Self-employed and business persons have special rights to establish a commercial presence throughout the CSME, and a big push is on to eliminate all of the restrictions, the bureaucracy and the obstacles to cross-border mobility of companies and other forms of business establishments.
“Registrars of Companies are hard at work to iron out kinks in the legal arrangements for establishments under the Companies Act and to bring about effective harmonization of the rules for incorporating and registering companies in the CSME,” says Ambassador John, the chairman of the major organizing body of the Conference on the Caribbean.

The Washington-based CARICOM Caucus of Ambassadors indicates an increasing confidence among the people and companies in the Caribbean Community. This confidence will not only allow them to compete globally but also will be a demonstration of how small countries can define their place and succeed in the global marketplace.