Global financial crisis high on CARICOM summit agenda

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders opened their annual summit in Georgetown, Guyana Thursday with the global economic crisis overshadowing the region's future development.

Secretary General Edwin Carrington warned leaders that while the crisis has severely affected their economies, it is also providing an opportunity for closer collaboration within the regional grouping.

“Let us not waste a good crisis,” he told leaders, noting that 20 years ago the Caribbean had started preparing for such an eventuality through the Grand Anse Declaration that spoke to initiatives such as the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) - the highlight of which is the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services across the 15-member grouping.

But he said that the time for preparation has long past and the leaders must now engage in a “free and frank debate” as to the future direction of the integration movement.

“The debate must lead to a rekindling of the hope for our people of the Community,” he said, urging the leaders to “send a clear message to the world that there is now a strengthened Caribbean region”.

Outgoing CARICOM Chairman and Prime Minister of Belize Dean Barrow expressed disappointment over "the failure of the developed world to discharge their obligations to us”.

And he complimented regional states for their strategies so far in dealing with the crisis.

Grenada Prime Minister Tillman Thomas noted that the crisis has negatively impacted upon some of the main pillars of the regional economies such as tourism, construction and services, which have led to the high unemployment and a significant decrease in remittances.

Thomas urged his regional counterparts to devise a strategy to deal with the crisis, warning “we either sink or float”.

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda said economic crisis has brought the region to the “crossroads of survival or perish", adding that never in the history of the Community has it had to deal with a recession that is comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

He told leaders that they must ensure that the confidence imposed upon them by the people of the Caribbean is not lost as the region deals with the crisis, adding “as leaders we are asking our people to make sacrifices, we too have to do so”.

He added that whatever action CARICOM takes must be “swift and coordinated” and that “cooperation must be our guiding principle in order to emerge from this crisis”.

During the opening ceremony, former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson, a “committed regionalist”, was awarded the region’s highest award, “The Order of the Caribbean Community”, for “his outstanding contribution to the region, particularly in the area of external trade negotiations".