(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Chairman of the Caribbean Community, Barbados Prime Minister the Rt. Honourable Owen Arthur has strongly urged the Community to expedite the adoption of the Girvan/Special Task Force report titled :”Towards A Single Economy And a Single Development Vision.”
The new CARICOM Chairman, in his keynote address at the CARICOM Summit in Barbados, said the report would serve as the basis for decisions by Heads of Government on a road map for the implementation of the Single Economy in 2008.
Once approved, Chairman Arthur said, the Community could as of this year, initiate the actions necessary to implement some of the essential measures to create a Single Economy and to bring that Single Economy fully into operation by 2015.
Actions proposed for implementation over the next 18 months, he said include, “the adoption of the CARICOM Investment Code; the CARICOM Financial Services Agreement; the extension of the free-movement of labour to a wider category of our citizens, and early action on the Jagdeo Initiative in respect of collaboration on Production Integration in Agriculture.”
The Barbados Prime Minister underscored the urgent need for the establishment and commencement of operations of a Regional Development Fund to provide the resources to enable the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) to benefit more from, and to be properly fitted into the Single Regional Economy and Single Market Space.
Chairman Arthur further noted that it was of critical importance to establish the recommended Regional Competition Commission in Suriname by November 2007, to give the assurance that the regional market would not only be free, but would also be a fair market.
He also pointed to recommendations for the approval in relation to the integration of the Region’s Financial and Capital Market, and the establishment of a Regional Stock Exchange.
The Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community is being convened under the umbrella theme: Functional Cooperation: A Community for All, with special emphasis on critical areas of human and social development, such as education, health and disaster management.
