CARICOM still vital to Caribbean - Carberry

CARICOM still vital to Caribbean – Carberry

Jul 04, 2010 News

As the Caribbean Community gears to celebrate CARICOM Day tomorrow, the People’s National Congress Reform says while the bloc is being tested it is critical to the Caribbean. During the party’s press briefing on Friday, Public Relations Representative Malika Ramsey said that the integration process has been subjected to some testing times.

She used the opportunity to express on behalf of the party “warm congratulations on the occasion of the 37th Anniversary of the Regional Integration Movement,” to the Community as a whole and its staff at the Community Secretariat, in particular. She said that the impact of the global economic and financial crisis has placed new burdens on the integration process.

“Important components of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) have come under scrutiny and challenge….However, the PNCR, which has played an important role in promoting and sustaining the movement for unity of the region, and is, therefore, familiar with the evolution of its history, would never lose faith because of these trials.”

She said that the integration process has been challenged before, in various ways, but it has survived them and, as a result, is today one of the oldest integration movements in the world. “The PNCR, therefore, salutes the integration process and its leaders in a confident mood and looks forward to the community playing an even greater role in the lives of the citizens of this region.”

The Party Vice Chairman, Basil Williams, said that CARICOM has had its many success over the years in areas such as security. CARICOM, originally the Caribbean Community and Common Market, was established by the Treaty of Chaguaramas which came into effect on August 1, 1973. The first four signatories were Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.