GEORGETOWN (Stabroek News):
PRESIDENT OF the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Dr. Compton Bourne, said there was still refusal among Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to accept the concept of a common market space, with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) around the corner.
During the delivery of the feature address of the annual dinner and awards ceremony of the Guyana Manufacturing and Service Association Ltd (GMSA) on Friday night, Bourne said no nation in CARICOM had signed on to the CSME "for altruistic reasons"; they all want something out of it after seeing the potential benefits that the regional integration body could bring.
But he warned that for those countries, expectations were not limited to absolute progress.
According to the Guyanese-born professor, many of the concerns relate to trade. He said if a country was not competitive in all sectors, what it will lose in some sectors would be made up for in others.
He said tourism was another opportunity for countries in the region and they needed to be more receptive to visitors from the region. He said that at the moment, the aim of tourism was extra regional, but stressed that the regional market can be important post-CSME.
He said that though some countries had natural resources, these could go unutilised because of the unavailability of capital and labour. But CSME could provide the policy framework for this to be possible.
Bourne said the problem of undocumented workers was an economic injustice and spoke of the fears host countries had that these workers would be a burden to their social services.
