Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in discussion with Prime Minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur, during a press briefing at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Montego Bay on Tuesday, following a two-day joint meeting of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committees on External Negotiations and the Caribbean Single Market Economy. - photo by Noel Thompson

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (CMC):

Caricom countries remain on track to implement a single economy by the 2008 target date, Barbados' Prime Minister Owen Arthur said in Montego Bay at a meeting of regional leaders.

The arrangement, for now, excludes struggling Haiti and Bahamas, the latter by choice.

Arthur, who has lead responsibility for the implementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), said a schedule had been drafted and that Caricom leaders were soon to approve the framework for the regional economy.

The single market, its first component allowing for the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services across the region, took effect in two stages in 2006, but leaders had deferred the single economy aspect until 2008.

Regional investment code

Speaking in Jamaica following the conclusion of this week's prime ministerial talks on the CSME, Arthur told reporters that the implementation schedule was put in place, but that a regional investment code and the trade negotiating body, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery must first be tied into the integrated framework.

"The timetable for the single economy takes all these things into account, because it recognises that a single economy must not only be based upon what we agree to here, but must be set in the context of the mastery of our international economic relations," he said.

The process also requires a reconstitution of the Caricom Prime Ministerial sub-committees, to give country leaders specific responsibility over sectors of the Caribbean economy versus the sub-committee responsibilities - linked to programmes or projects - they are now assigned.

"I am, therefore, very pleased as to where we are in the process," said the Barbados leader.

The CSME sub-committee, he said, has met the deadlines set by the regional leaders and a report prepared for ratification by the Prime Ministers at next week's intercessional meeting in St. Vincent had met the mandate set.

Scepticism

"In today's world, I know that there is a lot of scepticism of what we are doing with the CSME. There are some people who seem to feel also that we should hop out and perhaps not pursue it ... but already there are companies that are benefiting from the single market alone," he said.

Speaking for Barbados, Arthur said the creation of the single market had led to an expansion of exports to single market partners, adding that some home-based companies were already making plans for expansion and that the same was happening across the region, leading to the setting up of a number of pan-Caribbean companies.