Half a Dozen Caribbean Nations Kick Off Free Market Trade Bloc

The leaders of six Caribbean nations have created a free-trade zone styled after the European Union, which they hope will boost commerce and improve the region´s ability to compete with the world.

Business leaders expect the main effect of the Caribbean Single Market to be the free movement of workers and investment, and not necessarily of goods.

The single market, officially inaugurated in Kingston, Jamaica, on Monday but which has been in force since the start of the year, initially includes Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Surinam, and Trinidad and Tobago. Six others –Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines- have agreed to join later this year.

London has given Montserrat, a British dependency, the go-ahead to join. Haiti´s new government will decide on participation after elections and the Bahamas have opted out.

The single market is part of a wider vision, the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), for the members of Caricom, the largely English-speaking Caribbean political grouping.

Caribbean leaders hope to conclude the CSME by 2008 to encompass 12 nations, 6-million people and $26 billion in economic output. The plan was first envisioned in 1989.

The most immediate effect will be to allow Caribbean professionals to take their skills wherever they are needed. About 2000 have applied to have their qualifications certified for use across the single market. Of those, 700 have been approved.