Caricom Single Market

CARICOM Single Market was formally inaugurated in 2006, but some elements are still not yet in place; and there has been but little progress towards implementing the CARICOM Single Economy (Girvan 2010). This requires a great deal of work in the harmonization of policies, laws, institutions and regulations. Implementation shortfalls are often attributed to the absence of a supranational element in CARICOM governance. The governments of all 12 CSME participating countries are required to agree on the entire range of measures to be adopted; following which each government is responsible for implementation. This is a formidable task which strains the human and institutional capacities of most member states; which may also be constrained by the perception that there are limited economic benefits to be derived from the arrangement. The CARICOM reality is that intra-regional trade is dominated by a single country--energy-rich Trinidad and Tobago with its strong manufacturing base. The majority of member countries have very little to export to one another and their exports consist mainly of primary products, tourism and international financial services oriented to international markets. Indeed, it has been shown that market integration per se is likely to bring few benefits in regional groupings that consisting of economies that are small and undiversified and have competitive, rather than complementary, structures of production and trade (Brewster and Thomas 1967, Mesquito and Mendoza 2007). The neoliberal model of integration is therefore of limited relevance as a strategy of development for CARICOM.