As I said earlier in this year in terms of Community activity, it has been a virtual annus mirabilis for the Community. The Region has, indeed, moved closer to being the integrated body that we all hope it will become.

Let me refer to some significant developments

SUMMITS

CARICOM Heads of Government, as is customary, met twice for the year - at the Inter-sessional in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in February, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister the Hon. Patrick Manning, and in July for their regular annual Summit in St Kitts and Nevis, under the Chairmanship of The Honourable Dr Denzil Douglas.

These meeting were supplemented by two meetings of the Bureau, one in St Kitts and Nevis in October and one on Barbados in November.

We, at the Secretariat, were delighted to have Chairman Manning visit us during his term and share his thoughts on the way forward for the Community. We were also deeply appreciative to the Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, the Prime Minister of Dominica, for having done the same.

Heads of Government also participated in a number of other major international meetings, including the CARICOM-Spain Summit in Madrid, and the European Union/Latin America and the Caribbean Summit in Vienna, Austria, both in May.

CSME

The year started on a very positive note with the launching of the Single Market on January 1 by Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, with an impressive formal ceremony at Mona, Jamaica on 30 January.

Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines followed suit at the Twenty-Seventh Regular Session of the Conference of Heads on 3 July. The net expected result is that as Prime Minister Manning, then Chairman, said in January, “our economies will become more resilient, with greater capacity for self-generation and more attractive for inflow of new capital”.

Development Fund

As the Community moved towards establishing the framework for the Single Economy by 2008, the Heads of Government agreed in February to capitalise the CARICOM Development Fund at US $250 million. The Fund is a major element of the CSME. The CSME was also boosted by the bringing together of representatives of Member States, captains of industry, lead representatives of labour, members of academia and civil society in a three day symposium in pursuit of the Single Economy, Caribbean Connect, in Barbados.

Please let me remind that we can only achieve a Single Market and Economy through the joint efforts of Governments and their social partners. It is not easy to achieve the status of CSME, hence the reason that CARICOM so far is the only grouping of developing countries to have committed to this depth of integration. But we are not yet there – we have a significant way to go yet. Moreover, commitment is one thing, implementation, the true test, is another.

Community Production and Trade

While the Community has been engrossed in the building of the Single Market and Economy, it has likewise been engaged in the bread and butter, or should we say rice and beans, issues of regional production and trade. It has even been concerned with the issue of cement. More anon, including developments relating to our key agricultural production and exports especially sugar, banana and rice.