Office of the Prime Minister

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Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding

Prime Minister the Hon. Bruce Golding has emphasized that within a single market, trade has to be rule based and cannot be dependent on an exporter getting hold of a Minister to call his counterpart in another country to sort out the situation.

"We must be able to send goods from Jamaica to Trinidad, or Barbados to Antigua or to St Vincent. This must be no more difficult than sending goods from Kingston to Montego Bay. What needs to be established is a proper framework for those rules," the Prime Minister said.

Speaking to journalists at the end of this morning's first official session of the 30th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community now underway in Georgetown, Guyana, Mr. Golding said there is also an urgent need to determine how to deal with the question of certification. Under the WTO rules, a country reserves the right to do risk assessment of imports into its country.

He said that as a single market, the Caricom Community needs to establish a framework for standards organisations, where Jamaica would be prepared to accept the certification of the Trinidad standards body and vice versa rather than Jamaica having to say that they have to travel to Trinidad to inspect their processing facilities.

Mr. Golding noted that the smooth flow of trade within the region could not be achieved through contention and quarrel, but that the Caricom leaders must sit down as responsible leaders and look at solving the problem through negotiation.

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