CSME: Main Provisions and Expected Benefits

• Author: UWI-CARICOM Project
• Pages: 39-60

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CSME: Main Provisions and Expected Benefits

Even though official documentation on the CARICOM Single Market

and Economy (CSME) has certainly been available, there has nevertheless

been much adverse comment and dissatisfaction about the level of information

shared with stakeholders. A CARICOM booklet on the CSME is available.1

Another booklet is available on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Yet

prominent persons, even in the business community, have been heard on TV

programmesin one territory2, admitting their level of ignorance and suggesting

that too often seminars on the CSME bring together the wrong participants.

It has also been said that engagement with civil society is lacking. In one

newspaper3, the CARICOM website has been castigated for the jargon in

which questions on the CCJ, central to the CSME, have been answered.

In considering the assertion of many people, that they know little about

the CSME, one might note that the problem lies less in their broad awareness

of the provisions being implemented than in the absence of emphasis to the

different types of stakeholders about how they might benefit in the short,

medium and long-term. The entrepreneurial spirit that leads to identifying

business opportunities and seizing them is not aroused. This failure to arouse

entrepreneurial opportunity seeking is all the more likely when the trend in

reporting on developments in the Single Market is to accentuate disadvantages

for some countries, groups of countries, or population segments.

Presumably, there would be more creative use of information in situations

where there is sufficient awareness of what benefits might accrue.

Documentation available on the CSME is clear as to the main mechanisms

to be established. It is less certain that the benefits are sufficiently well

articulated to arouse citizens and countries to pursue speedy implementation.

This chapter seeks to highlight the main expected benefits.

CSME: MAIN PROVISIONS AND

EXPECTED BENEFITS

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40 CSME: Challenges, Benefits, Prospects

Some of the Main Benefits

1. Benefits Related to the Trade in Goods

Implementation of the measures of the CSME will remove any remaining

restrictions on trade in goods. The measures are intended to complete the

process of liberalisation by the elimination of tariffs and remaining non-

tariff barriers (administrative and technical). While well over 90 per cent of

trade has already been liberalised, it has been reported that unauthorised

restrictions have been applied in a few countries, even when those countries

are in a good position in intra-regional merchandise trade. It should be

expected that countries with a deficit in intra-regional trade would derive

benefits from the abovementioned measures, since the freeing of trade would

be supported by measures to adopt common standards, technical or protective.

The use of such standards would help avoid the fragmentation of an already

small market, as would be the case if differing standards were applied.4

The CARICOM Secretariat has produced a brochure to inform, advise

and guide producers, traders and service providers. This document points

out that goods of CARICOM origin will be free of import duties, tariffs and

quantitative restrictions. It goes on to emphasise that: “The treatment of

intra-regional imports will be different from those coming from the rest of

the world.” Moreover, manufacturers will be able to get their goods to over

six (6) million people - fourteen (14) million if Haiti is included.5

Standards are important for the acceptability of goods being traded intra-

regionally, but are also relevant to meeting export market requirements.

Intra-regionally, over fifty (50) standards have been developed and a Standards

Institution – CROSQ – was recently established.6 Thus, a potential benefit of

measures in this area is the simplification and harmonisation of customs

documentation and procedures. This would contribute to saving time and

costs for business transactions.

2. Benefits Related to the Trade in Services

The CSME seeks to capitalize on the recent technological advances that

now make services more tradable across borders than before. Under the

original Treaty, a skeletal framework of disciplines and rules was constituted

for the Establishment, Right to Provide Services, Movement of Capital, and

Saving in Respect of Movement of Persons. Most services have the special

characteristic of being simultaneously produced and consumed. In the light