A LACK of public information continues to 'plague' the introduction of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), according to Senator Delano Franklyn, State Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Senator Franklyn, speaking at the opening ceremony of the University of the West Indies' (UWI) Research Day at the institution's Mona campus yesterday, said Jamaicans had however become more aware since a 2003 survey that showed 65 per cent of Jamaicans had never heard of the CSM and that only 10 per cent could identify a component of it.
INFORMATION DEFICIT
He said what he termed the 'information deficit' had been a problem since CARICOM started in 1973 and that, despite the modern media age, intra-Caribbean coverage was still lacking.
"The CSM is a project which involves nearly all the member states of the Caribbean Community ... and shaping them into a single market," Senator Franklyn said. "This is no different from Jamaica operating as
one rather than 14 distinct parishes."
He took pains to stress the difference between the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), which began on January 1 and the single economy (CSME), to be added by the end of 2008. The CSM includes the removal of barriers to trade, goods, services and several categories of labour. The CSME will involve a single currency and the harmonisation of economic policy.
Senator Franklyn underlined several future hurdles to regional integration.
Provision of adequate regional air transportation.
CARICOM member-states having to cede responsibility to the regional whole.
Greater diversity in production to boost intra-regional trade; currently at just 10 per cent of total trade.
Implementation will require government bureaucracies to work for the Caribbean people and not against them.
CSME, like the West Indies cricket team before it, must be made to be meaningful in the lives of the Caribbean people.
