CSME must lay stage to facilitate regional growth and development
-Minister Persaud during consultation to review the Draft Report on Rural Community Readiness

Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud has emphasised the need for CARICOM states to understand that industries are not owned by any particular member state and that the region’s people do not belong to any specific state, but to a regional grouping.
            He reiterated these views while delivering the feature address at a consultation on Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) Rural Community Readiness, held to review the Draft Report on a career study promoting buying within rural communities, and stimulating and encouraging their active participation in CSME. 

Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud addressing the gathering at the CSME consultation to review the Draft Report on Rural Community Readiness at the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston

            “The Challenges is and continues to be how to meet the information needs of all stakeholders on the issue relating to the progression of the integration process and how to operate and make a living within the new regimes. These have pointed to the rural community as one critical stakeholder group especially, in its capacity as a source of agricultural produce to consumers within the CSME,” he said.
            Minister Persaud stated that producers and inhabitants in rural communities are unaware of the CSME, noting that they are unable to access opportunities because of challenges in understanding how to meet market access requirements such as Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary requirements.
            He pointed out that if the CSME is to succeed, then the gap between the richest and poorest countries needs to be narrowed, noting that the free movement of capital goods and services should not only be allowed but also the free movement of labour.
            “This freedom of movement can be of significant benefit, since there is a huge potential of skilled labour in the Caribbean diaspora. To this end if the CSME is to fulfill its mandate, it must lay the stage for business to operate in an economic space that facilitates growth and development and create the conditions for extra-regional expansion into the global economy,” the Minister said.
            The CSME is regarded as the most ambitious enterprise undertaken by the Anglo Caribbean since independence, and has the potential to unlock and unleash latent economic strategy in the Caribbean. The most recent was the approval of the ‘Single Development Vision’ by the Heads of Government in 2007, to guide the CSME development process.

Participating members of CARICOM states during CSME consultation to review the Draft Report on Rural Community Readiness at the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston

           As such, agriculture, fisheries and the forestry industries have been recognised as economic drivers of the Single Development Vision. This according to Minister Persaud can be recognised by the 500 rural farmers currently involved in the Ministry’s Rural Enterprise and Agriculture Development (READ) project.
            The project which will be developed over a six-year period is being implemented under a comprehensive Agriculture Diversification Strategy with the aim of empowering rural communities through agricultural trade.
            “We believe that agricultural development stimulates rural development and rural communities’ buy-in to the CSME is dependent on much member states allow agriculture to be a vibrant regional production and trading enterprise.”
            “In a rural development efforts it is important to recognise the cultural practice of the communities; and to also ensue engender change one must develop a strategy that seeks to augment the community efforts and foster community development,” he said.
            The READ project is being done in communities in Regions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10.
            Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary General, Trade and Economic Integration, CARICOM Secretariat, Ambassador Irwin La Rocque while lauding the timeliness of the consultation, said that the CSME is aimed at providing access and opportunities to live, work and trade in any CARICOM state freely.
            “As a community our challenge is to ensure that the fruits of our efforts through our guided CSME are to have widely and equitable distribution in and among our member countries,” he said.
            In achieving this he stated that easy access of information on citizens using available technologies must be set as a priority, since there can be no CSME benefits without communication and interactions.
            The sum of $2.5M euros from the European Development Fund will also be spent on the development and implementation of a public education strategy; which will commence next year.
            Representative from CARICOM states including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and St. Kitts were also in attendance.