A jour­ney back in time: 1989 Grand Anse in Grena­da to rekin­dle the en­thu­si­asm and promise of the then lead­ers of Cari­com to es­tab­lish and have func­tion­ing, the Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my. It was the ide­al, and re­mains so for the 15-mem­ber re­gion­al group­ing to bring to­geth­er in­di­vid­ual re­sources, hu­man and ma­te­r­i­al, to achieve the best pos­si­bil­i­ties for the sev­en to eight mil­lion cit­i­zens of the re­gion.

Yet, 34 years lat­er the Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, Dr. Hy­gi­nus “Gene” Leon can be call­ing on re­gion­al states to fin­ish and im­ple­ment the el­e­ments of the CSME left out­stand­ing.

“Giv­en the re­gion’s ex­pe­ri­ence over the 2020-2022 pe­ri­od, now is the time for us to re-imag­ine re­gion­al co-op­er­a­tion and in­te­gra­tion. And what this can mean for us as Caribbean cit­i­zens,” said the pres­i­dent of the re­gion­al bank which has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fund de­vel­op­ment projects in mem­ber states.

As con­ceived of and set out by the found­ing econ­o­mists and ear­ly lead­ers of the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment, cit­i­zens of the ilk and com­mit­ment of Mr. William De­mas, Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal, prime min­is­ters Michael Man­ley, A.N.R. Robin­son, Owen Arthur, John Comp­ton and their col­league prime min­is­ters, the CSME was es­tab­lished to bring the re­sources of the re­gion to­geth­er to cre­ate val­ue-added prod­ucts to re­place cer­tain im­ports and to build an ex­port plat­form.

“I there­fore call for a re­newed com­mit­ment to ad­vance the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my through the in­crease of mar­ket­ing ac­cess for goods and ser­vices and peo­ple pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ing economies of scale,” said the CDB Pres­i­dent at the Bank’s an­nu­al news con­fer­ence.

Dr. Leon not­ed that con­clu­sion of the out­stand­ing el­e­ments of the CSME such as free move­ment of skills and cap­i­tal across mem­ber states “will of­fer greater em­ploy­ment and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties and pro­vide a plat­form for in­creased in­no­va­tion and dig­i­til­i­sa­tion.”

He iden­ti­fied the liq­ui­da­tion of the re­gion­al air­line, LI­AT in 2020, as leav­ing air trans­port in the East­ern Caribbean in cri­sis. From 500 week­ly flights in 2019 to 50 in 2022 has been one re­sult of LI­AT’s demise. The CDB pres­i­dent has called on re­gion­al lead­ers to “re­form air trans­porta­tion en­vi­ron­ment,” adding that it’s des­per­ate­ly need­ed to trans­form sev­er­al of the economies of mem­ber states.

As a re­sult of LI­AT’s ab­sence, the CDB Pres­i­dent says “80 per­cent of the food now con­sumed by cit­i­zens and our guests is im­port­ed; leav­ing the re­gion open to food in­se­cu­ri­ty in­to the fu­ture.”

Once again, Cari­com is be­ing pre­sent­ed for a take off by a mem­ber state hav­ing the fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty, and on this oc­ca­sion, the ge­o­graph­i­cal and ma­te­r­i­al base to spur mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment. Guyana now has the po­ten­tial to un­lock its phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, fi­nance de­vel­op­ment projects across the re­gion and en­gage mem­ber states to pro­duce goods and ser­vices for in­ter­nal con­sump­tion and ex­port.

This is not about char­i­ty, but rather a means of har­mo­niz­ing the re­sources of cap­i­tal, land, skills, in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal trade and de­vel­op­ing prod­ucts to achieve what the Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my was en­vi­sioned for. In its own in­ter­est, Guyana has to be care­ful of mere­ly cov­er­ing the land­scape with malls for the con­sump­tion of for­eign goods.

New lead­er­ship im­pe­tus is des­per­ate­ly need­ed to re­vive the pos­si­bil­i­ties of Cari­com.