The Guyana-based Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Sec­re­tari­at Wednes­day said that con­sul­ta­tions with key stake­hold­ers have be­gun across the re­gion to fi­nalise the CARI­COM In­dus­tri­al Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy (CIPS) ex­pect­ed to be ap­proved re­gion­al trade min­is­ters lat­er this year.

It said that Suri­name, which holds re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the In­dus­tri­al Pol­i­cy in the CARI­COM Qua­si Cab­i­net, is spear­head­ing work to­wards its com­ple­tion to present it to a spe­cial meet­ing of the Coun­cil for Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (COT­ED) in Oc­to­ber 2025.

The Sec­re­tari­at said that the work to be car­ried out in time for that meet­ing in­cludes deep­er en­gage­ments with key stake­hold­ers in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and that al­ready, con­sul­ta­tions have been held with stake­hold­ers in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, while oth­ers are planned for lat­er in Au­gust.

Di­rec­tor of Sec­toral Pro­grammes at the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, Am­bas­sador David Pren­der­gast, said that there is a strong de­mand for the pol­i­cy from the re­gion’s pri­vate sec­tor. The pol­i­cy is ground­ed in the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas and is in­tend­ed to pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of en­ti­ties rang­ing from mi­cro to large busi­ness­es.

“Es­sen­tial­ly,(this pol­i­cy) seeks to boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, to cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for em­ploy­ment across the re­gion, to use our re­sources op­ti­mal­ly, and to con­nect us in­to glob­al val­ue chains which are crit­i­cal for pro­duc­tion with the ul­ti­mate ob­jec­tive of im­prov­ing the stan­dard of liv­ing of our peo­ple across the Re­gion,” Pren­der­gast said.

The in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant to the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, San­di­ford Ru­el Ed­wards, said giv­en the cur­rent glob­al en­vi­ron­ment, the CARI­COM In­dus­tri­al Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy is well-po­si­tioned to make a sub­stan­tive con­tri­bu­tion to re­newed eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and cul­ti­vat­ing in­dige­nous growth and pros­per­i­ty by ad­dress­ing both es­tab­lished in­dus­tri­al sec­tors and emerg­ing in­no­v­a­tive fields and tech­nolo­gies.

“It is im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge that this in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy is not a uni­ver­sal rem­e­dy; his­tor­i­cal glob­al ini­tia­tives have some­times re­sult­ed in no­table fail­ures, and there re­main valid con­cerns re­gard­ing gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion in mar­ket se­lec­tion.

“This strate­gic frame­work pro­pos­es a col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­el be­tween re­gion­al gov­ern­ments and the pri­vate sec­tor, tar­get­ing 12 in­dus­tri­al ecosys­tems along­side five cross-cut­ting en­ablers,” he said.

The 12 eco-sys­tems at the foun­da­tion of the pol­i­cy are agri-food, fish­eries and pro­cess­ing; con­struc­tion; cul­ture and cre­ative in­dus­tries; dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion; ed­u­ca­tion and hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment; en­er­gy; health and well­be­ing; mo­bil­i­ty and trans­porta­tion; mi­cro, small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es; non-food man­u­fac­tur­ing; re­search, de­vel­op­ment and in­no­va­tion; and tourism.

The CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at said that the cross-cut­ting en­ablers are fi­nanc­ing, com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy and con­sumer pro­tec­tion, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, stan­dards and en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Aug 13, CMC