Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran is expressing scepticism over the blacklisting of 14 Caribbean countries by the European Commission. He expressed concern that the move could hurt the region's financial services sector and underscored the need for greater transparency in the drafting of rules for the financial services sector.
Dookeran a former governor of the Central Bank, said: "We have been calling for a very transparent process in the world of rule making–in the world of international finance.
Unfortunately, several of our member countries have been on the other end of being identified as being countries that do not comply with certain aspects of international rule making in finance.
I join with my colleagues in the region who have expressed deep concern with recent events with respect to the issue of identifying several of our countries.
The Caribbean region as a whole has developed regulatory systems, and has become a centre for the movement of international finance.
As such, measures to determine the rules for the finance world must be transparent and must be done in collaboration and in partnership."
Commenting on new models for Caribbean development, the focus of an Eclac meeting in Port-of-Spain last week, Dookeran said building new systems for Caribbean convergence was squarely placed on the agenda of the Caribbean Forum on the Future on the region.
He emphasised the need for new models of Caribbean convergence beyond integration.
"The development paradigm that is relevant for our region and for the world has to do with the issue of whether equity and growth working together or work contrary to each other's objectives," he said.
"Does equity drive growth? This has been the seminal contribution of Eclac. And perhaps, we must deal with that issue in a very clinical way where equity is in fact a driver of economy growth and what does that means for public policy and for dealing with the problems in the Caribbean."
Dookeran said the challenge for the Caribbean is identifying the benchmark upon which a global policy must be agreed.
"The partnership between Eclac and regional government's was to identify and raise the ambitions of the Caribbean.
I hope that the involvement of Eclac and so many other bodies will assist us altogether in moving forward with a new sense of confidence, with a higher level of ambition for our region, and with an advocacy that is practical and effective for the promotion for those issues which we have agreed upon."