By Erica James-King, Senior Staff Reporter.JPG)
Knight
WESTERN BUREAU:
BUSINESS LEADERS in the Caribbean have devised an 11-point action plan to fast-track implementation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
This plan is to have the CSME become a reality long before CARICOM'S deadline of December 31, 2005.
The action plan which is also aimed at giving the region's private sector a foothold in all negotiations by CARICOM for the establishment of the CSME and other trade arrangements, will be formally presented to the regional secretariat on May 27 and 28 this year, when CARICOM'S Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) meets in Guyana.
The action plan was hammered out during the three-day Caribbean Transnational Conference (CARIBTRAN) which ended on Saturday at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Montego Bay.
Dr. Rollin Bertrand, CARIBTRAN chairman, told The Gleaner that the document covers the establishment of a nine-member private sector committee to make recommendations to COTED; on-going the speeding up of accreditation for the movement of labour within the region; and the revision of the December 2005 timetable for the implementation of a monetary union in the region.
It focuses on accelerating the pace of the implementation of the CSME; appointing a chief executive to replace the CARICOM Secretariat in co-ordinating CSME- related activities; the provision by the private sector of a lawyer on a six-month rotation to assist CARICOM with harmonising custom regulations in the region; broadening COTED to include private sector representatives.
The region's company bosses also proposed developing a business plan for CARICOM; a more focused and wider public education programme on the CSME; sector-specific studies to guide their individual development; and giving full effect to Protocol 7 to put in place a programme for sectors that need special assistance.
K.D. Knight, Jamaica's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade,gave his blessings to the plan.
He said he saw a new will among the business sector to reform their activities in keeping with regional integration and make a substantial contribution to the way forward.
"The recommendations that they have made show that they want a genuine partnership (between the private and public sector), recognising that in this partnership there are things that they need to do, and they have expressed their preparedness to do so", he said.
In other reactions, Martin Laborde, chairman of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Chamber of Commerce, said business interests in his country were excited about the new public/private sector partnership that the plan is designed to forge.
Gary Voss, president of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, felt the action plan would deepen, the "much overdue private sector involvement" in the CSME process.
"The private sector has identified some non-tariff barriers that need to be addressed and they have identified ways of speeding it up. I am pleased that they have come up with a proposed vehicle for helping the public education process on the Single Market and Economy and CARICOM is committed to working with them," said Byron Blake, CARICOM's assistant secretary general for Regional Trade and Economic Integration.
