Biography

Dr. Santosh Kumar Mishra is researcher, associated with S. N. D. T. Women's University, Mumbai, India since 1987. His qualifications include, Post Master's Diploma in Adult & Continuing Education, Ph. D., & Certificate in Population Studies. Dr. Mishra has contributed papers at international conferences at Karachi, Manila, and Hong Kong.

Article Title

Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Integration in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

Abstract

In the year 1973, the smaller and largely English-speaking countries of the CARICOM launched an integration plan intended to coordinate and enhance their collective economic and social development. Initially designed as an intra-regional free trade area with expectations that it would become a common market, the CARICOM integration has unfolded slowly and been limited to a partial customs union. The CARICOM’s strategy for finally achieving a “single economic space” rests on implementing the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), formally established on January 1, 2006 and intended to be fully in place by 2015. The CARICOM is a highly trade dependent region undergoing major changes to its economic relationship with the world. Adjusting to these changes through the CSME is its primary development challenge. The CSME is an integrated development strategy envisioned at the 10th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community which took place in July, 1989 in 2 Grand Anse, Grenada. To fulfill the CSME’s vision, its members would have to adopt considerably deeper commitments to economic integration.

This paper gives an insight into the CARICOM's development and implications for U.S. foreign economic policy. It discusses early integration efforts and challenges and opportunities for economic integration in the CARICOM. The paper concludes that as an inward looking strategy typical of 1970s integration efforts, the CARICOM was constrained as a trade-related development strategy. While integrating, expanding, and protecting the regional market for goods, the CARICOM did not enhance intra-regional trade to the degree expected.