Introduction

• Author: Kenneth Hall/Myrtle Chuck-A-Sang
• Pages: 13-14

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Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The offering of essays that this book contains, represents an attempt to

satisfy the needs of at least four, possibly overlapping, groups. These groups

may be categorized as: Laypersons, busy with the daily survival-and-progress

issues of their lives, who need to have a feel for what is developing in the

milieu in which they are trying to survive; Students, seeking to garner a

more than cursory appreciation of the nature of the evolution towards a

CARICOM Single market and Economy; Academicians, interested in the

comments of their peers, of leaders of Caribbean Governments, and of leading

opinion formers associated with the nascent institutions of the CSME, about

where we seem to be heading; and Politicians, needing to improve the acuity

with which they perceive the efforts of, and prescribe actions for, their

individual countries as participants in the trek towards to the CSME.

The selections begin with a presentation on the Revised Treaty of

Chaguaramas – the framework that underpins the concept of the CSME.

That selection is followed immediately by a Progress Report that indicates

where the evolutionary process stood as of 30 May 2006. The Report

indicates for the fifteen countries where they each stood in relation to

implementation of key elements of the project for establishing the CSME.

Thus the genesis of the CSME and the progress achieved towards its full

implementation are dealt with in the first section of the book.

The last section of the book has a crystal ball aura. It contains selections

looking both backward and forward, like Janus, seeing where we have come

from, and giving visions of where we appear to be heading.

The intervening seven sections deal with important dimensions of the