Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington urged newly appointed chairman to the Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP) Karen Nunez-Tesheira to pursue the agenda for developing the CSME and joint initiatives to combat the effects that the global financial crisis continues to have on the Region.
Carrington, according to a Caricom news release, said he was particularly pleased to welcome Nunez-Tesheira, Minister of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago, to the Chairmanship of this important organ of the Caribbean Community and he expressed confidence in her ability to help to galvanise COFAP into accelerating progress on a number of initiatives, many of them perennial on its agenda, which are all vital to the development of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The Secretary-General told the new chairman that she has been appointed at a time when Community is still “shocked by the extent of the catastrophic disaster which has befallen our sister CARICOM State, Haiti.” He said the Community had pledged its full support to Haiti in pursuit of its reconstruction according to the self-determined needs of the Haitian people. “Particularly critical to this process is the need to contribute towards enhancing the depleted institutional and human capacity required to direct Haiti’s reconstruction,” he said.
In this regard, Caricom has already appointed as the Special Representative of the Caricom Heads of Government to Haiti, former Prime Minister of Jamaica PJ Patterson. The heads have also established a Caricom Haiti Support Unit in the Secretariat, headed by Secretary-General Granderson, who had just returned from Haiti. In addition, it is intended that the Caricom Office in Haiti would be strengthened with a view to providing more effective support on the ground for institutions, needed for the reconstruction process.
Carrington told the meeting that he looks forward to further thoughts from them regarding ways in which Caricom can assist in enhancing Haiti reconstruction efforts. “Your wisdom and foresight were evident in the creation of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) whose prompt pay-out to Haiti turned out to be one of the significant sources of financing in this Haiti’s hour of need,” Carrington added.
Additionally, Carrington said member states are also continuing to deal with the effects of the global economic and financial crisis which they can only tackle jointly. He said events over the last two years have underscored the fact that Caricom is most likely in the future to be able to safeguard against such destabilizing effects by pursuing joint action as far as possible within the context of the framework for the CSME. As such he said the Community cannot afford to delay putting in place the regional economic and financial architecture which it needs to ensure the future stability of the Community in the face of externally induced turbulence. “In this regard, I urge you to take immediate action now that the Legal Affairs Committee (LAC) has recommended the adoption by Member States of the CARICOM Financial Services Agreement,” he said adding that he was hopeful that a firm commitment to adopt this Instrument could be made by the end of the meeting.
Meanwhile, in her address Nunez-Tesheira said COFAP was looking forward to Hockin’s response to COFAP’s policy agenda and initiatives that will address Caricom’s needs. “We note the IMF’s recent role in restructuring Jamaica’s domestic debt, alongside the provision of a US$1.27bn Stand-By facility, was significant enough to upgrade the country’s rating scores with both Fitch and S&P,” she said. In the light of this the chairman said COFAP anticipates that the IMF will play a key part in shaping the discussion regarding the formulation of a more relevant set of eligibility criteria for highly indebted middle income countries.
She said developments in the global economy warrant decisive consolidation of its position in many spheres. Economic growth in the Caribbean is estimated to have declined by about 1.4% in 2009 and while the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago projects that growth in Latin America and the Caribbean will increase from 2.5% in 2009 to 2.9% this year it has also indicated that the short-term prognosis for the Caribbean remains a challenge. The growth rate of several regional economies is projected to average -0.2% at most.
Nunez-Tesheira said because of the Region’s interdependence it must move quickly to adopt a common response to issues such as regulation of the financial sector, fiscal strategies and marketing of the Caribbean brand and inward investment policies. “The aggressive pursuit of this agenda is certain to result in a more robust financial and economic regional infrastructure that would reduce our susceptibility to the ebb and flow of the developed economies,” she said.
