If CARICOM is to safeguard the region’s interests in the global arena and achieve the objective of improving the lives of its citizens, its most important immediate task is to advance the implementation of the Single Market and Economy (CSME), Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque says.
LaRocque underscored the CSME’s importance when he spoke at the opening of the two-day 47th Regular Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) yesterday at the Marriott Hotel, Kingston, Georgetown.
At the summit, CARICOM ministers with responsibility for trade are to focus on a number of key issues, including the CSME, with emphasis on its implementation plan and challenges, making the CSME more effective, and the definition of artisans and household domestics. They are also to discuss the direction of CARICOM’s external trade policy and its trade relations with the United Kingdom post-Brexit.