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SIX MORE COUNTRIES SET TO JOIN SINGLE MARKET BY 31 MARCH 2006

  (CARICOM Secretariat, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Six remaining Caribbean Community Member States have agreed to complete all arrangements and join the CARICOM Single Market by 31 March 2006.

The Ministers and officials representing, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts/Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines assured CARICOM’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) at its 20th Meeting held in Georgetown, Guyana on Thursday that all would be ready by the set date. They would join Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago for whom the Single Market took effect on 1 January 2006.

At the meeting, which ended late Thursday night, the Council agreed to extend the provisions of a key article of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas to include three more products to the protected list for the Less Developed Countries (LDC) of the Community. Under Article 164 of the Treaty, which is designed to promote industrial development particularly in the LDCs, some products manufactured in those countries are given temporary preferential treatment within the Community. The list has been increased to include water, malt and animal feed.

This Article, along with the regional Development Fund to assist Disadvantaged Countries, Regions and Sectors is particularly important to the LDCs in respect of the operation and functioning of the Single Market. The Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP) is due to meet on 31 January in Kingston, Jamaica to review the recommendations of a team of senior finance officials led by the CDB regarding the structure, funding and access to the fund. The team was established by COFAP at its meeting last December.

The COTED also advanced work on establishing key institutions to support the functioning and operation of the Single Market. These include the Regional Competition Commission, the Regional Accreditation Body and the Caribbean Food Health and Safety Agency. One of the already established institutions, the Caribbean Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) presented its report to the meeting.

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