CSME a challenging proposition, says Antigua-Barbuda PM

PM Spencer and his 17-member Cabinet along with CARICOM leaders during their visit to Antigua and Barbuda

by Sarrah Hadeed
Caribbean Net News Antigua-Barbuda Correspondent
E-mail: sarrahhadeed@yahoo.com 

Thursday,  November 3, 2005

ST JOHN'S, Antigua: The advent of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be a challenging proposition for the nation of Antigua and Barbuda.

So said Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer as he addressed the nation Tuesday, as the country celebrated the 24th anniversary of political independence from Britain.

Speaking with the press in Guyana earlier this year, Spencer pointed out that there is no turning back noting that there a number of benefits to derived from being a part of the CSME. PM Spencer told the people of Antigua and Barbuda that they will be "confronted with managing their country’s "fragile economy in the uncharted environment that the full implementation of the Caribbean Single Market and Single Economy will bring."

According to Spencer, the CSME will further open the twin-island nation to competition of goods and services from fellow CARICOM countries to an extent that has been seen before. 

A trade unionist by profession, the Prime Minister went on to note that in order to ensure the security of the country's skilled workers and professionals, "we will have to enhance our competitiveness in the region and in the globalised market place," pointing out that, "we can only do this by improving efficiencies and increasing output in the production of goods, and in the delivery of services," adding that, "in anticipation of the removal of duty and taxes as mandated by the World Trade Organisation, as well as by the CSME, we have no option but to accelerate the restructuring of our country’s economy."

Spencer warned that if no effort was made to do these things, the country runs the risk of being a "casualty of the CSME and the globalised economy, instead of being a beneficiary country."

Recently, a CARICOM delegation comprising the Secretary General of CARICOM Dr. Edwin Carrington Barbados' Prime Minister Owen Arthur, CARICOM's point man on the CSME along with a team of technicians, recently paid a two day visit to the country where they held talks on the country's readiness for the CSME which come on stream on January 1st, 2006.

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