CSME — Caricom’s passport to FTAA

THE Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) is Caricom’s best passport to enter the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the current stalling of the FTAA process is a blessing in disguise. This was the opinion expressed on Friday by Ambassador Extraordinare and Plenipotentiary, Jerry Narace when he addressed a CSME workshop for the private sector at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters in Westmoorings.

Describing hemispheric trade as a series of concentric circles, with the CSME at the nucleus, Narace said the delay in establishing the FTAA would give Caricom more time to develop the CSME as a single economic space allowing the free movement of goods, capital and people throughout the region. He said the CSME “is our deepest form of integration” and it will “give us a better platform” to enter the FTAA when it comes onstream. 

Speaking at Thursday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Foreign Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift said TT held numerous bilateral discussions with several Latin American nations during last week’s European Union, Latin American and Caribbean nations summit in Guadalajara, Mexico. He said written confirmationt for TT’s bid for the FTAA Secretariat would be forthcoming from some of these nations this week.  Chile is one of these nations, having recently expressed an interest in forging air links between Port-of-Spain and Santiago (with several other Latin American cities being included along the route).

Narace reiterated that the CSME was born out of the fact that the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas did not adequately prepare the region for a new world economy and listed the benefits which the region stood to derive from its creation. He said TT was on course (along with Barbados and Jamaica) to be CSME ready by the end of 2004 and is currently 80 percent ready. Narace added that the region had much to gain from the CSME with cross-border investment over the last five years surpassing $3 billion. “The creation of truly regional companies and the opportunities to invest through direct stock ownership or mutual fund investments mean the benefits of this economic benefit are accessible to every Caricom citizen,” he declared.

However the Ambassador conceded that the one drawback to the CSME’s establishment could be the passage of legislation to establish the Caribbean Court of Justice as the region’s final appellate court. He declined to be drawn into questions on the issue since it was “a matter for Parliament.” Narace also disclosed that Haiti requested a two-year moratorium, due to the current instability there, before it could enter the CSME.

TT Chamber president Christian Mouttet said while TT’s economy was ready for the rigors of international trade, other Caricom nations’ economies were not and they needed to “reach similar development modes.” He said the moves to establish the CSME should be “prviate sector driven” at the core. Mouttet stressed that Caricom governments must hold fast to the stated timeframe to create the CSME because “1993 is long gone and December 2005 is fast approaching.”