REGIONAL INTEGRATION IS THE LAST BEST HOPE FOR THE CARIBBEAN

Greater Georgetown, July 2, 2009 -- The Honourable David Thompson, Prime Minister of Barbados, said on Wednesday that the Caribbean was faced with global economic convulsions of unprecedented proportions, which had reinforced convictions that regional integration “is the last best hope” for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“Going it alone or fragmenting into unworkable reconfigurations of the regional project cannot be an enduring solution”, the Barbadian Prime Minister Thompson stated.
He was at the time speaking at a press briefing in Georgetown, Guyana, on the eve of the 30th Meeting of the Conference CARICOM Heads of Government.

Prime Minister Thompson who is also Lead Head of Government with responsibility for the Single Market and Economy in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet stated that in the current economic crisis, it was easy for stakeholders to become impatient due to what they saw as the slow pace of the integration project and to declare it “dead on arrival”.
Alternatively, he posited, what was needed was the strengthening of the core ideals of the integration movement rather than “proliferating the periphery.”

“In the midst of global crisis and regional upheavals, now is not the time for CARICOM to retreat from its strategic purpose,” the Barbadian Prime Minster emphasized. He added that the crisis had highlighted the need for the refocusing of many of our national institutions from purely domestic visions to the wider regional horizon.

“The successful implementation of the interlocking elements of the CARICOM Single Market and eventually the Single Economy demand this of us,” he stressed.

“It requires of us to put in place number of regional institutions dealing with accreditations, standards, and the exchange of information amongst other infrastructure to facilitate the CSME. If we do not do this carefully, we would endanger the fabric of the very societies regional integration aimed at sustaining” Prime Minister Thompson added.

Outlining the progress of the CSME, he stated that all of the provisions for the rights of establishment and the free movement of the goods, services, and skilled persons had been implemented.

Included in the successful implementation of the Single Market, Prime Minister Thompson said, was the establishment of the CARICOM Development Fund, which has been established to assist disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors.

He said while the time table for the Single Economy may have been delayed, recent developments in the Region have shown the true extent of the financial interdependence that already existed, and this has given new urgency to the policy coordination efforts of the region’s regulators and ministers of finance.

Reflecting on the historical Grand Anse Declaration and Work Programme for the Advancement of the Integration Movement, crafted at the 10th Meeting Heads Government Conference, 1989, Grand Anse, Grenada; Prime Minister Thompson said that it was now time for the Community to “regroup and refocus to find strategies irrecusable of survival”.

Prime Minister of Barbados is expected to lead a discussion on the developments within the CSME at the July 2-5 Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government.