The state of the economies of the Member States of the Caribbean Community will be placed under the microscope when CARICOM Heads of Government meet in Saint Lucia for a Special Meeting on 16 August 2002.
The decision for a meeting to focus specifically on the Region's economies was taken when CARICOM Heads of Government met in Guyana for their 23rd regular meeting in early July 2002.
This special session is regarded as being imperative in light of the bleak economic outlook for even the strongest economies in the Region like Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. The ripple effects from the slow down of the economy of the United States and in more recent times some economies of South America, are regarded as severe enough to have affected CARICOM countries. Declining rates of economic growth since the mid-1990s, the effects on the tourism industry due to the September 2001 events, and the trade pressures being experienced by the banana, sugar and rice industries due to the erosion of preferential arrangements have made regional products uncompetitive forcing them out of international markets.
In order to avoid economic disaster, the Regional leaders have agreed that measures have to be implemented and concrete results must come out of this meeting. One of the proposed measures to be discussed at Friday's Meeting will be the implementation of a regional system of stabilisation of cash strapped regional economies and financial policies to reverse the current system where governments find themselves in shrinking economies with spiraling debt and high interest rates. A major aspect of this measure is the establishment of a regional Stabilisation Fund also down for consideration at the St Lucia Meeting.
Representatives from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and other financial institutions from across the region, will join the CARICOM Heads of Government in their deliberations on the future of the Regional Economy.
