KINGSTOWN–Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ir­win La Rocque has un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) to the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion process.

The CSME al­lows for the free move­ment of skills, good, ser­vices and labour across the re­gion, and La Rocque said the con­sul­ta­tion process as well as the work of the Com­mis­sion on the Econ­o­my, es­tab­lished by re­gion­al lead­ers last Sep­tem­ber, "has val­i­dat­ed the con­tin­ued rel­e­vance of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my as the plat­form from which to build our eco­nom­ic re­silience".

He said the Com­mis­sion's pre­lim­i­nary re­port sug­gests pri­or­i­ty at­ten­tion to fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, in­clud­ing debt man­age­ment, and pro­mot­ing a con­ducive en­vi­ron­ment that would re­duce re­gion­al im­ped­i­ments to in­vest­ment and trade and spur pri­vate sec­tor growth and de­vel­op­ment.

He said the Com­mis­sion al­so recog­nis­es the im­por­tance of en­er­gy, in­for­ma­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) and trans­porta­tion sec­tors as en­ablers of this growth and de­vel­op­ment.

La Rocque said with re­gards to ICT, which he de­scribed as both an en­abler of so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment as well as a sec­tor in its own right for cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment, the sec­tor in both its forms must be viewed as the new fron­tier for re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and "has to be a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor as we forge a path to­wards growth and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment as well as in our ef­forts to strength­en that spir­it of Com­mu­ni­ty".

But he said to en­hance those pos­si­bil­i­ties, the cre­ation of a sin­gle ICT space with­in Cari­com "should be pur­sued vig­or­ous­ly in our ef­forts to bring tech­nol­o­gy to the peo­ple, while aid­ing in build­ing our tech­no­log­i­cal re­silience".La Rocque said growth and de­vel­op­ment can­not take place with­out the hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty to sus­tain it, adding that "a holis­tic ap­proach to our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems would ad­dress the short­com­ings and chal­lenges that have been ob­served in hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty in both pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

CMC