| CARICOM
EXPLORING DEEPER SOUTH/SOUTH INTEGRATION |
| KINGSTON, Dec. 23 (JIS): |
CARICOM
Secretary General, Dr. Edwin Carrington, has said that
the Community would be focused on deepening South/South
relations as part of the strategy towards promoting
sustainable development.
He made this statement in his CARICOM year-in-review
broadcast in Kingston on Tuesday (Dec.13).
Local and regional trade experts agree that deeper South/South
co-operation and integration is the only way to cope
with the fallouts affecting developing states in the
world trade system under globalisation.
January 23, 2006 is seen as a forward step in the process
of deepening South/South co-operation as this date will
herald in the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), with Jamaica
and her 14 CARICOM partners signing the official documents
in Kingston.
The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), which
has a 2008 implementation date, seeks to go even further,
in that it will establish a single economy. For the
achievement of this goal, CARICOM has earmarked US$70
million to be used over a 10-year period.
Acting Assistant Director of the Foreign Trade Unit
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade,
Esmond Reid, sees the implementation of the CSM as an
example of South-South integration, which will help
to cushion the shocks of drastic market liberalisation.
In furtherance of this goal, Mr. Reid disclosed to JIS
News, that CARICOM, through its Council for Trade and
Economic Development (COTED), was in initial discussions
with MERCOSUR, the Latin American regional trade bloc,
which is the fourth largest in the world. “We
are in the early discussion stage with MERCOSUR…which
constitutes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay,”
said Mr. Reid.
Founded in 1991, but officially inaugurated in 1995,
MERCOSUR is a free trade area and customs union whose
associate member states include Bolivia, Colombia, Peru,
Venezuela and Ecuador.
It has a combined population of more than US$190 million
and a Gross National Product (GNP) of some US$800 billion.
The negotiations with MERCOSUR are in an embryonic stage,
having started just this year in Trinidad. COTED has
not yet begun deeper discussions regarding necessary
compliance measures among other integration issues.
However, Mr. Reid says that a good CARICOM partnership
with MERCOSUR would be a step toward “building
and strengthening South/South alliances”.
Another probable benefit of such an alliance would be
improved trade relations with the European Union (EU),
which is MERCOSUR’s leading trading partner, investor
and development aid donor.
Relatedly, Peter Jones, Executive Director of the Economic
Development Institute and author of the digital book
Jamaica 2030: A Strategy for Developed Country Status,
is of the view that some of CARICOM’s development
answers lie in deeper South/South integration.
“For us to be successful, we need more development
in South/South trade and further integration,”
noted Mr. Jones.
Jamaica’s recent PetroCaribe arrangement with
Venezuela and collaborations with Brazil in alternatives
to sugar such as the ethanol plant, are but early examples
of deliberate attempts to deepen and widen South/South
cooperation. |
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