CARICOM Single Market and Economy
[19] Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were the next batch of members (six in all) that joined the CSM on 3 July 2006 at the recent CARICOM Heads of Government Conference.
[20] Current full members of CARICOM and partial participant of the CSME: Haiti's Parliament ratified the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas in October 2007 and Haitian Foreign Minister Jean Renald Clerisme presented the published Notice of Ratification to the Chairman of the Caribbean Community Council of Ministers, on 7 February clearing the way for the country's full participation in the CSME[21] on 8 February 2008.
It is being assisted in its preparations by the Secretariat, led by the CARICOM Representation Office in Haiti (CROH) which was re-opened in 2007 with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
[24] As a first step towards the CSME, Haiti was due to enter the trade in goods regime of the Single Market in January 2010 (earlier targets had been for some time in 2009)[25] but could not do so because of the earthquake.
However soon after Haiti's progress towards full adoption of the CET began to stall with the dismissal of the Government of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis in November 2009 and was then put on hold as a result of the January 2010 earthquake.
In July 2015, at the 36th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Bridgetown, Barbados, Romeo gave assurances that Montserrat was continuing efforts to complete the process of accession to the Revised Treaty in a timely manner.
It has a long gestation period commencing in 1970 when the Jamaican delegation at the Sixth Heads of Government Conference, which convened in Jamaica, proposed the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Appeal in substitution for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
[49] At the 9–10 February 2007 meeting of the Regional Coordinating Mechanism for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, officials discussed arrangements for the award of the CVQ which was approved by the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) in October 2006.
[54] (Main Sources; JIS website on the CSME and Google Cache of SICE - Establishment of the CSME at[55] - see references) Chapter III of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas provides for the free movement of skilled Community nationals (article 46) as well as for the free movement of non-wage earners, either as service providers and/or to establish businesses, including managerial, supervisory and technical staff, and their spouses and immediate family members.
[61] The beneficiary Member States under the project are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
[62] The agreed policy, called The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Free Movement of Persons Act, is now enacted legislation in all the CSME Member States.
They are: University Graduates, Media Workers, Artistes, Musicians, Sportspersons, Managers, Technical and Supervisory Staff attached to a company and Self-Employed Persons/Service Providers.
[67] Following on from a special summit on the CSME in early December 2018, held in Trinidad and Tobago, the Heads of Government agreed to expand the categories of skilled nationals eligible for free movement to include security guards, beauticians/beauty service practitioners, agricultural workers and barbers.
On the contrary it helped to fill critical vacancies in member states with respect to teachers and nurses, thus proving to be very beneficial to maintain a certain level of social services in these countries.”[80] It is expected that by June 2014, all CARICOM nationals will have easier access to participating CSME Member States, and be able to fully exercise their rights to travel, work and seek out other opportunities as provided for under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) arrangement.
[86] At the 30th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads ofg Government from 26 to 27 February 2019 in St. Kitts, all remaining CARICOM Member States participating in the CSME signed up to the Contingent Rights Protocol.
[89] This groundbreaking decision extends beyond the current CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) scheme, which allowed free movement only for agreed categories of skilled nationals.
(Main Source; JIS website on the CSME - see references) The Revised Treaty also calls for harmonized regimes in a number of areas: Anti-dumping and countervailing measures, Banking and securities, Commercial arbitration, Competition policy, Consumer protection, Customs, Intellectual property rights, Regulation and labelling of food and drugs, Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, Standards and technical regulations & Subsidies.
Draft model legislation is being developed by a CARICOM Legislative Drafting Facility in collaboration with the Chief Parliamentary Counsels of the region (Main Source; JIS website on the CSME - see references) The free movement of capital involves the elimination of the various restrictions such as foreign exchange controls and allowing for the convertibility of currencies (already in effect) or a single currency and capital market integration via a regional stock exchange.
It was also thought that these benefits in turn would stimulate capital flows, intra-regional trade and investment, improve balance of payments performance and increase growth and employment.
In response and in an effort to continue pursuing monetary cooperation and integration, CARICOM Central Bank Governors made their regional currencies fully inter-convertible.
[98] One of the institutions and regimes created to give life to the regional integration movement through the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, is the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF).
The idea for the CDF was borrowed substantially from a similar mechanism successfully employed the European Union[99] (the EU's Cohesion Fund)[100] in helping bring certain of its member states, such as Ireland, up to a certain economic level to assist them in effectively participating and benefiting from the integration process.
[99] The CDF was established under Article 158 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas “for the purpose of providing financial or technical assistance to disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors.” It is the centre-piece of a regime to address the disparities among the Member States of the Community which may result from the implementation of the CSME.
[99] The CDF also benefited in 2009 from technical assistance grants of US$149,000 from the Caribbean Development Bank and €834,000 from the European Union (EU) Institutional Support Facility in addition to a 2009 contribution of €300,000 signalling the start of a closer relationship between the Government of Finland and CARICOM.
The Government of Turkey also provided support to the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to assist them in making their contribution to the CDF's capital fund.
One of the significant recommendations of the project was that the proposed regional and domestic public procurement legislative and policy reforms should be based on the UNCITRAL Model Law.
The proposed regionally integrated Government Procurement system would bring further life to the CSME single market component, allowing for an effective means for businesses of CARICOM member states to operate in each other's countries.
[111] The work plan calls for a common regional IT infrastructure, supported by legislative protocols and a business development component that would help to stimulate the intra-regional procurement activities.
[112] A reform of the procurement systems and processes in every country where the project is to be implemented will also be undertaken, as well as the installation of relevant IT hardware and software and the training of required personnel.
[114] “In Article 7, which deals with non-discriminatory, equal treatment and fairness, all of your domestic laws and practices relating to CARICOM, must mirror those provisions,” Carryl told JIS News in an interview.
