Caricom Leaders to Launch CSME in January

Prime ministers from the Caribbean Community economic bloc will inaugurate the region´s single trading market at a ceremony in Jamaica.

Leonard Robertson, a spokesman for the 15-member Caribbean Community and Common Market, said recently that leaders will meet in Kingston, Jamaica on January 23 for the symbolic launch of the market.

“All I can say that the leaders are to meet in Jamaica where some documents are to be signed but the details have not been quite worked out as yet,” he said.

Commenting on the market, styled after the European Union, Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington said the region should not underestimate its importance.

“This is a major psychological and political step for the region,” Carrington said. "We are on the road to a single market, but getting to a single economy would be a bit more difficult."

Caribbean leaders said the single economy was designed to facilitate the movement of goods, services and certain categories of workers between members of the regional trade bloc.