KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Over the past five years, Trinidad and To­ba­go has wel­comed 2,546 Ja­maican na­tion­als for work.

The fig­ure was dis­closed by Head of the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) Unit, Joanne Brooks, dur­ing a CSME Pan­el Dis­cus­sion at the Ja­maican High Com­mis­sion in St Clair on Fri­day.

“Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 per cent of that fig­ure cur­rent­ly en­joy the priv­i­leges of the Free Move­ment of Skills Regime,” Brooks said.

“Un­der the Right of Es­tab­lish­ment, our records show that over the same pe­ri­od, 42 Ja­maican na­tion­als have cre­at­ed suc­cess­ful en­ter­pris­es or as­sumed man­age­r­i­al, tech­ni­cal, and su­per­vi­so­ry po­si­tions in our work­force.

“One such busi­ness is Trin­Jam Foods Lim­it­ed, which has been es­tab­lished for 18 years and was found­ed by a Ja­maican na­tion­al right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. His suc­cess stands as liv­ing proof of the ben­e­fits of the CSME.”

Brooks al­so point­ed out that the move­ment has been rec­i­p­ro­cal.

She added: “Many Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als and busi­ness­es have sought and found vi­able op­por­tu­ni­ties in Ja­maica, where they have been wel­comed with open arms to the land of ‘wood and wa­ter,’ reg­gae mu­sic, and some of the world’s fastest and most cel­e­brat­ed ath­letes. These ex­changes are what make re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion a lived re­al­i­ty.”

She not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to mod­erni­sa­tion and in­no­va­tion.

“For the past three years, the CSME Unit, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with iGovTT, has digi­tised its ser­vices,” Brooks said.

“Na­tion­als can now ac­cess an e-Ap­point­ment Plat­form, e-Ap­pli­ca­tion Por­tal, and an AI-gen­er­at­ed Chat­bot on our web­site, mak­ing it eas­i­er than ever to ap­ply for a Skills Cer­tifi­cate or for the Right of Es­tab­lish­ment, whether from the com­fort of one’s home in Port-of-Spain, Suri­name, or any­where in the world.”

Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Trade (CSMT) As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, Am­bas­sador Wayne Mc­Cook, said both Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica play cru­cial roles in the CSME.

“The strong link­ages be­tween the two coun­tries in in­vest­ments and trade in goods and ser­vices have been mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial,” he said.

“As the com­mu­ni­ty moves to adopt an in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy and strength­en its agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy, there will be sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for the two economies to con­tribute to pro­duc­tion in­te­gra­tion and com­pet­i­tive­ness goals that are crit­i­cal to the CSME’s progress.”

Am­bas­sador Mc­Cook de­scribed the CSME as the bold­est and most con­se­quen­tial re­gion­al eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion ef­fort of the re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“It un­der­pins the four pil­lars of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion – eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion, for­eign pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion, hu­man and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and se­cu­ri­ty. Its aim is the cre­ation of a sin­gle eco­nom­ic space for the free move­ment of peo­ple, goods, cap­i­tal, ser­vices, and the right of es­tab­lish­ment (five core regimes).

“All of these are works in progress, with the free move­ment agen­da en­ter­ing a new phase with full free move­ment among four mem­bers start­ing last week.

“For the CSME to work, it needs to be sup­port­ed by a strong com­pe­ti­tion law and pol­i­cy frame­work, con­sumer pro­tec­tion, pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, en­abling dig­i­tal poli­cies, and good trans­porta­tion sys­tems.”

Am­bas­sador Es­mond Reid, Ja­maica’s Am­bas­sador to Cari­com and Un­der Sec­re­tary, For­eign Trade Di­vi­sion, MFAFT, who spoke vir­tu­al­ly, said Ja­maica con­tin­ues to view the CSME as a crit­i­cal ve­hi­cle for both na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“A mech­a­nism that fos­ters eco­nom­ic growth, strength­ens com­pet­i­tive­ness, and cre­ates the foun­da­tion for sus­tain­able pros­per­i­ty across our re­gion,” he said.

“In an era of in­creas­ing glob­al un­cer­tain­ty and ris­ing pro­tec­tion­ism, the CSME re­mains vi­tal to our col­lec­tive re­silience. It is at the heart of Cari­com’s eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion agen­da, one of the four key pil­lars of our com­mu­ni­ty, along­side for­eign pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion, hu­man and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion.

“Ja­maica is ho­n­oured to have as­sumed the chair­man­ship of Cari­com on Ju­ly 1, 2025, un­der the theme ‘Peo­ple, Part­ner­ships, Pros­per­i­ty: Pro­mot­ing a Se­cure and Sus­tain­able Fu­ture.’ From Ju­ly 6-8, 2025, we suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in Mon­tego Bay.”

Ja­maican High Com­mis­sion­er Na­tal­ie Camp­bell-Ro­driques said the pan­el dis­cus­sion was born out of the voic­es of the Ja­maican Di­as­po­ra in T&T, who asked for a ded­i­cat­ed CSME fo­rum.

“One that pro­vides in­for­ma­tion, prac­ti­cal guid­ance, and the chance to sub­mit ques­tions and re­ceive clear an­swers,” she said.

“We lis­tened, and we act­ed! By con­ven­ing this pan­el, the High Com­mis­sion has not on­ly ac­knowl­edged your re­quest but has cre­at­ed a space where con­sul­ta­tions meet clar­i­ty and where con­cerns are trans­lat­ed in­to ac­tion.”

The event al­so formed part of the High Com­mis­sion’s con­tri­bu­tion to Ja­maica’s chair­man­ship of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com for the pe­ri­od Ju­ly to De­cem­ber 2025.