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Leslie-anne Edwards
A project which is designed to ensure a better functioning CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) has been launched in Dominica. It is entitled “The CARICOM-CIDA Trade and Competitiveness Project” and is financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) at a cost of CDN$9.6 million over four years.
At a launching ceremony in Dominica recently, a number of stakeholders in the public and private sectors were briefed on the objectives of the Project and on the need for their input in the process. Ms. Leslie-Ann Edwards of the CSME Unit gave an overview of the CSME and an update on the status of its implementation.
The CARICOM-CIDA Trade and Competitiveness Project is intended to address a number of the supporting administrative reforms and actions required at the national level to give full operational effect to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy not just in Dominica but throughout the Caribbean Community. The project will examine all departments within Government Ministries, Statutory Bodies and Non-State Institutions involved in the administrative process of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy regime.
This phase of the project involves field and desk research by consultant Mr. Kerrie Symmonds on the legislation, regulations and administrative system(s) at the national level necessary for the smooth functioning on the CSME regime. Senator Symmonds is an Attorney-at-Law and a former Trade Minister of Barbados.
Though the CARICOM Single Market (CSM) has been in operation in Dominica and other islands in the region 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 2001 and the Programme for the Removal of Restrictions agreed to at the Thirteenth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in Belize in 2002.
Participating countries in the Project are the Commonwealth of 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 launching ceremony of the CARICOM-CIDA Trade and Competitiveness Project in Dominica was organised by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Consumer and Diaspora Affairs in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat’s CSME Unit and Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD).
