A YEAR ago CARICOM Chairman at the time, Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse, called for 2012 to be a significant year of change for the regional integration movement which will be marking its 40th anniversary this year.

The outgoing Chairman St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony gave a harsh assessment of CARICOM in a recent address to the Barbados private sector, which left little doubt that the regional integration boat is drifting and still very much in need of a lifeboat.
The St. Lucian leader’s CARICOM review titled ‘CARICOM:QUO Vadis’ was strange enough the identical title of an earlier assessment of the integration movement by Caribbean affairs expert Dr. Anthony Bryan, the former  Director of the Trinidad and Tobago-based Institute of International Relations at the University  of the West Indies.
“CARICOM as an institution appears to be emerging as a “half-way” house reflecting a shift from the solely inter-governmental framework to an emerging integration model in which members are now more willing to explore the options of multiple integration schemes simultaneously,” said Bryan, now a Senior Associate with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.
He said as an institution, CARICOM is “neutered” and further stated that CARICOM member countries tend to pursue their different development and political strategies pragmatically, without consultation or coordination with other member states.
Bryan observed that the management of CARICOM relations with Venezuela is not approached collectively. “Some of us would argue that Petro Caribe’s regional impact and the individual state response of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean) may have damaged the coherence and integrity of CARICOM and further emphasised the vulnerability of the regional institution.”
Bryan feels Barbados is likely to strengthen relations with the sub-regional group Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which he described as “well organised”.
He sees Trinidad and Tobago as having its “own agenda” and observed that there is “no great enthusiasm” in Port of Spain for CARICOM.
In this column a few months ago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves called on Trinidad and Tobago to be “more engaged” with CARICOM and address  how its fuel subsidy impacts the rest of the region in terms of trade and air transportation.
His St. Lucian counterpart Dr. Anthony has called on Trinidad and Tobago to “live up to its responsibility as a regional power.”
He contends that Trinidad and Tobago has a unique opportunity to re-define its vision and its role in “an emergent but troubled Caribbean.”
Guyana’s President Donald Ramotar agrees that Trinidad, which has the strongest economy in the region, can play a much bigger role in the regional integration movement especially in the area of investment. He believes the Port of Spain administration is beginning to be more aware of the “extremely important” role it can and should play.
He noted that Trinidad and Tobago is among those countries in the region finally sitting up and taking notice of the critical issue of food security in the region and the role that Guyana can play in addressing this problem.
Ramotar also told me he is encouraged by recent exploratory talks with a high-level Trinidad Ministry of Agriculture team on agricultural investment opportunities in Guyana. In addition, the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture is being accelerated. Hopefully, early in 2013 these initiatives can be translated into concrete projects that result in jobs and a dent in the region’s massive food import bill.
According to the Guyanese Head of State, because food security is now a global issue and higher food prices are affecting the region, there is “stronger interest” by CARICOM countries that can no longer ignore the issue.
On observations by other CARICOM member states, especially Jamaica, that Trinidad enjoys a significant trade surplus with its CARICOM partners and calls for a more level playing field in intra-regional trade, Ramotar says the private sector in the region needs to play a stronger role in addressing this persistent issue.
Ramotar reported progress in the area of free movement of persons within the region, including long-standing complaints of poor treatment of Guyanese at the Barbados airport, although there are still some nascent problems in specific Member States he preferred not to identify.
On the current negotiations for a trade and development agreement with Canada, he stressed the importance of Canadian development assistance, especially to equip the region to improve its competitiveness, given that the accord will provide reciprocal duty-free access for goods.
The state of the region’s economies has not improved significantly over the past year but there are indications of “incipient growth” in some countries, according to the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
CDB President Dr. Warren Smith told me that the Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) are beginning to take concrete steps to diversify their economic structures, pointing to a new sizeable agro-industrial development in Antigua and Barbuda and investment in medical tourism in Barbados.
He also cited as a positive development in 2012, moves by Jamaica and the Bahamas to participate in the Panama Canal Expansion Programme (PCEP), slated for completion in 2014. When completed, it will roughly triple the size of vessels that can pass through the Canal, significantly enhancing international trade for those two CARICOM countries.
Smith has also seen progress with countries strengthening their financial and regulatory systems, one of the CDB’s concerns he highlighted last year.
The CDB President has cautioned against expectations of significant growth in the region’s economies, noting that as long as the U.S. is in recession or emerging recession and the Euro Zone‘s debt crisis continues, Caribbean economies “will be hard pressed” to be on a robust growth path, with the exception of commodity exporting countries such as Guyana and Belize.
He welcomed the Caribbean Growth Forum, a new regional platform for dialogue to foster higher levels of economic growth. It is supported by key international and regional institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the CDB and the University of the West Indies (UWI).
For 2013, CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Rocque has identified the restructuring of the CARICOM Secretariat as one of the priority areas. It would be interesting to get an update on the 2012 priorities and how many of these have been advanced or implemented. This includes the Caribbean Investment Programme, Suriname’s proposal for Joint Economic Ventures and the long awaited Caribbean Business Council.
It would also be informative to get some specifics on exactly what elements of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be “advanced” this year.
The new CARICOM Chairman, Haiti’s President Michael Martelly, who is a newcomer to the CARICOM fold, will have a full plate of challenges over the next six months.
Trinidad and Tobago, which assumes the Chairmanship for the second half of 2013, will have an opportunity to display its commitment to the regional integration movement that badly needs an injection of dynamism, improved leadership, governance and productivity that could result in tangible benefits for Caribbean people.
It is interesting that all of the specialists in Caribbean affairs who recently assessed the state of the regional integration movement have come to the same conclusion. Coincidence? I think not.