SUPERMARKET SHELVES have already started to reflect what the latest Sunday Gleaner edition has labelled 'Shop Caribbean' - a new phase of regional integration called the Caribbean Single Market (CSM), due to start formally with the new year. The market commodities from our neighbours are much more visible to people at large than the ideological intangibles of the ill-fated political federation. The labels of canned or packaged goods, for those who take the trouble to read them, can point to trade imbalances which won't matter much to the consumer if quality is good. Such imbalances are primarily the business of the official agencies such as the Statistical Institute (STATIN), which has to help guide the administration in instituting any corrective trade policy.
Thus the relevant ministry will be aware that imports from CARICOM countries far outweigh our exports to them. All this is part of several other factors that come into play as the CSM or 'Shop Caribbean' gets under way. The Sunday Gleaner survey encompasses other factors such as the availability of jobs for qualified technicians or university graduates, the development of agriculture and transportation facilities to move goods through the region; and, perhaps most important, the promotion of tourism as a vital link to the world outside the Caribbean.
There will, of course, be intra-regional competition in all these areas of economic activity; thus the legal systems must be ready and able to settle trade disputes as well as maintain security arrangements to control illegal activity. Our own problems with high levels of crime are not isolated. Reports from Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana, for example, suggest that with free movements of people, regional police authorities must establish the requisite levels of cooperation. Sophisticated developments in information technology suggest that such cooperation should not be difficult to maintain.
Tourism is already well established as a regional economic activity and the CSM is poised to benefit from the Cricket World Cup of 2007. It is a happy coincidence that the sport which, more than any other factor, has united the Caribbean should now be poised to give what is anticipated will be a giant boost with cricket fans from all over descending on the region.
It would be happier if West Indies cricket had been able to restore its former glory of world dominance; but what the pundits often describe as the sport's glorious uncertainty offers hope to the region's fans and governments alike.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
