The CDN$9.6M trade and competitiveness project, financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and executed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, was launched in Guyana yesterday at the Foreign Service Institute.

The project, designed to ensure a better functioning of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), will address a number of supporting administrative reforms and actions required at the national level to give full operational effect to the CSME, not just in Guyana, but in 12 CARICOM countries.

Participating countries in the project are Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

The project will examine all departments within Government ministries, statutory bodies and non-state institutions involved in the administrative process of the CSME regime.

Giving brief remarks at the launch, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Cooperation, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett highlighted that the revised treaty of Chaguaramas speaks about the full integration of the national markets of member states in a single, unified and open market area. She expressed the belief that this project will aid in the achievement of that goal.

“The treaty further spoke about the right to travel, the right to provide services, to establish businesses and the right to move capital in the single space and I think what we are doing this morning is beginning a process which will move us one step farther in the whole process as outlined in the treaty,” she stated.

The project is divided into four components:

* Component 100 deals with the harmonisation and standardisation of administrative practices and procedures across the 12 participating countries;

* Component 200 seeks to enhance the effective functioning of the services and labour markets through standardised licensing and certification and mutual recognition of licences and certificates, making the free movement of services and people easier to accomplish with the Community;

* Component 300 will focus on widening the scope of participation of stakeholders and beneficiaries in the process of decision-making, implementation and operation of the single market; and

* Component 400 is a call down facility for consultations.

The first component of the project that will be developed in Guyana is component 300 and it was also launched yesterday. Work under this component will focus on information flows, the environment and gender issues.

According to Minister Rodrigues-Birkett, the work of the project under this component will look at the environmental framework that exists.

“It intends to look at the adequacy of that framework, to look at the gaps that we have and the end product will be a synchronised document across member states to see where we are and hopefully we will be able to move forward,” she explained.

To complement this project, the Minister also revealed that a public awareness campaign will be launched by her Ministry to sensitise Guyanese to the CSME.

“The information that we have here and from the enquiries that we get here at the Ministry… (point to) a lot of misinformation out there, and so we will be starting an education campaign…not only in Georgetown, but in Essequibo and in Linden and Berbice as well, and my Ministry’s staff members will be going on the television and the radio, and also at public gatherings so that people will be able to ask questions and get feedback right there on the spot,” Minister Rodrigues-Birkett stated.

Though the CSME has been in operation since 2006, its implementation remains incomplete, since some member states have not discharged in full their basic treaty obligations to remove restrictions. This is consistent with Chapter Three (Establishment, Services, Capital and Movement of Community Nationals) of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the Programme for the Removal of Restrictions agreed to at the 13th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in Belize in 2002. (GINA)