ASSISTANT SECRETARY-General of CARICOM, Byron Blake, has said that the regional body is moving swiftly to meet the 2005 deadline for the removal by member states, of all restrictions on the operation of air and maritime transport services.
Mr. Blake, who is in Jamaica for a two-day regional workshop titled, 'Transportation: Air and Maritime', told JIS News that as part of CARICOM's mandate, the workshop brought together a group of technical persons from the Caribbean, to look at the measures which restrict the operation of transport in the region.
"In other words," he said, "as a single market, we want to create a situation whereby all our operators can operate - both companies and individuals. We have to look at all measures that create conditions, which are more favourable to locals than to nationals in other parts of the region."
Whilst the restrictions on all other services have been removed and signed-off on by the Heads of CARICOM, this is not yet the case for international transport, maritime and air, he explained, adding, "they were not able to sign off on those, so the Heads have asked this group to continue that work."
The background to the workshop, Mr. Blake explained, was a decision taken in 1997 to create a single market for services within the Caribbean, and as a step towards creating that single market, all countries were required to remove all measures which they have, that did not treat nationals of other countries in the same way that they treated their nationals. This, he said was done by 2000, followed by a process of negotiations on how they would remove those restrictions, which were in place.
The negotiation took place between 2000 and 2001. And in early 2002, the Heads of CARICOM agreed to a programme under which, each country would remove all its restrictions by the end of 2005. "Hopefully," Mr. Blake said, "we can advance it at this technical meeting."
He informed that there was a working group on Services, which had the responsibility for making final recommendations. That group is due to meet in Georgetown, Guyana, next week, and if they can advance the process, they would make recommendations to the Community Council and the Council for Trade and Economic Development, which would then make final recommendations to the inter-sessional meetings of the Heads of CARICOM.
The types of transport services affected, include maritime, internal waterways, air, space, rail, road, pipeline, and services auxiliary to all modes of transport, and each mode of transport takes into account passenger transport, freight transport, rental of vessels with crew, maintenance and repair of vessels, pushing and towing services, and supporting services.
