(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Belize Prime Minster and Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) the Hon. Dean Barrow has dismissed as “an exaggeration” the “regional chatter” predicting the demise of the integration movement, and called on delegates to the Twentieth Intersessional Meeting of Heads of Government of CARICOM to consolidate the gains of the CARICOM Single Market and move forward with the establishment of the Single Economy.
Delivering remarks at the opening ceremony of the Meeting, the Prime Minister noted the dire predictions as well as the challenges that the Region faced which were now compounded by the global financial and economic crisis and the obstacles to the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
“Indeed, regional chatter has of late become especially gloomy, journalistic predictions especially dire. The notion has even been advanced that Belize’s magnificent Barrier Reef may well prove to be the symbolic shoals on which CARICOM runs aground. But reports of our death are an exaggeration. Instead let the restorative powers of this land, the elixir of its ancient civilization, work their magic. We must come away from this meeting with the renewal of energies and the reaffirmation of purpose that our CARICOM citizens both demand and deserve,” Prime Minister Barrow charged delegates.
The core objectives of the integration movement, the Prime Minister said, seemed to require constant revalidation, while the creation of the single economic space needed not just common approaches and policies, but common bureaucratic and administrative procedures as well.
Noting the gains of the Community in the recent past such as the expansion of the categories of persons to freely move and work in the Region, the establishment of the CARICOM Development Fund and the CARICOM Competition Commission, Mr. Barrow expressed satisfaction at “how far we’ve come”.
“We recollect that the Europeans took over 30 years to complete their integration work. We recall the ingrained culture of fragmentation we have to overcome. And we therefore take some satisfaction from having reached this far. Too much, though, remains to be done for us to be long detained by self congratulation. The philosophical and practical difficulties loom large; and the trick now is to consolidate the gains of the Single Market while picking our way carefully forward to the establishment of the Single Economy,” he told the audience.
