Lead Stories

Local business leaders have listed unfair trade among key issues they want to see tackled by Caribbean leaders, who start a four-day summit in Montego Bay this weekend.

Discretionary oil prices to Trinidadian markets, barriers to intraregional trade, reviving the regional integration process and CARICOM's role in the reconstruction of quake-ravaged Haiti are some of the proposed agenda items.

Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA) President Omar Azan called the discretionary oil prices available to Trinidad-based companies "unfair", adding that regional leaders need to create a level playing field.

"These goods are going into Barbados, St Kitts, Antigua and Jamaica and, based on price competitiveness, have taken over supermarket shelves and store floors," Azan lamented.

The JMA president made it clear he had nothing against Trinidadians but challenged the Golding administration to "stand up and fight for the producers, hoteliers and farmers of this country".

Echoing similar sentiments, president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), Milton Samuda, said making intraregional trade "as seamless as possible" was a very critical issue.

"Jamaica is perceived as extremely open and some territories not as open," Samuda observed.

More flak for trade barriers

Another issue for the regional leaders, according to president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association, Vitus Evans, is the many barriers to trade within CARICOM.

"We have to look at the kind of governance we want in the Caribbean and see where we are going with CARICOM as a unified economy," Evans argued.

Samuda was also strident about the much-talked-about regional integration movement, which he said seemed to have lost momentum.

"I think the leaders either have to recommit to the process and visibly, by action, demonstrate that they have so recommitted or tell the Caribbean people whether they calling it a day," the JCC president argued.

He also expressed the hope that the leaders could reach some agreement on how they can incorporate plans by the private sector to get involved in the reconstruction of Haiti.