Office of the Prime Minister

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Members of the public are being invited to attend a free public session on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) on Wednesday, January 25 beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Fellowship Tabernacle Auditorium, 58 Half-Way-Tree Road.

At the event the Jamaican public will be sensitised to the actualisation of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), which came into effect on January 1, 2006. Participants will also be given a regional overview of the state of compliance of participating CARICOM Member States.

Main speakers for the evening, who will also answer questions posed by the public, will be from the regional CSME Unit in Barbados.

The team will include: Ivor Corry, Economist, who has over 20 years experience with regional integration in CARICOM and who heads that Unit; Leela Narinesingh, Specialist, Private Sector Facilitations, CSME Unit, Barbados; Salas Hamilton, Specialist in Communications at the Unit and a legal specialist.

"People want to know about what's happening in Guyana, in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), in Haiti, Montserrat and the Bahamas, for example," Robert Miller, Head of the CSME Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in Jamaica, told JIS News.

Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago are already part of the CSM, while Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts and Nevis will be CSM-ready by the end of the quarter.

Of a 15-member organisation, this however leaves three members - Haiti, the Bahamas and Montserrat -still on the periphery.

As a British colony, Montserrat is in the legal process of entrustment from the United Kingdom (UK). Following entrustment, Montserrat will no longer be a UK colony.

"The process is taking a little longer than they had foreseen," explained Mr. Miller. The reason for the Bahamas opting out of the CSME so far has been the free movement of labour section of the Free Movement Clause of the Treaty of Chaguaramas.

Currently, five categories of wage earners can move freely within the CSM without work permits, which have been replaced by the simpler Certificate of Recognition of CARICOM Skills Qualification, loosely referred to as the skills certificate. They are: university graduates, artistes, musicians, sportspersons and media workers.

In addition, managers, technical and supervisory staff attached to a company and the self employed who may not be strictly defined as wage earners complete the list of those eligible for free movement.

In the case of Haiti, the CARICOM Secretariat expects that following that country's proposed elections this quarter, Haiti will be an active participant in the CSME.

It is proposed that Jamaica, through the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ), will assist in the Haitian elections.

Of note will be the issue to be discussed by Ms. Narinesingh. She will focus on the proposed operationalisation of a regional stock exchange and the necessary adjustment that will be required of the OECS.

Earlier that day, the media will also be given further insight to the integration process currently underway, at a press briefing to be hosted by the regional CSME Unit at the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) conference room.

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