C'bbean
markets must integrate
Trinidad Express
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
09 23 07
A
COUNTRY'S economics can never be seperated from its social development. Wealth
and welfare, in
other words, must keep pace with each other if
a nation is
to truly progress.
But
in economies such as ours that is easier said
than done. In fact a famous economist, Dudley Sears,
once described an open petroleum-based economy,
such as Trinidad and Tobago's, as akin to a "time
bomb" since the wealth accrued from the energy
sector is not usually distributed to the majority
of the population.
In most cases, in such an economy, there is an
inequitable distribution of income.
It
was therefore interesting to note that Labour
Ministers who met at the Hilton Trinidad last week-the
15th Inter-American Conference- have reaffirmed
their committment to the ILO's Declaration of Philadelphia
that "Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger
to prosperity everywhere".
While
boasting that unemployment was now down to five
percent of a workforce of about 640,000
people, Labour Minister Danny Montano also acknowledged
that "a decent job" can no longer be
used as just an attractive catch phrase.
Montano points out that the major challenge to
achieving decent work in this region is that it
must be done not as isolated members states but
as an integrated regional market.
This then begs the question: Why after almost
50 years after the idea of a Caribbean Single Market
Economy (CSME) was first suggested by economists
doing research on the mono-crop small-island economies
of the West Indies, the proposal is yet to become
reality?
Dealing with these problems remains high on the
agenda of most regional governments today.
The late Sir Arthur Lewis, the Caribbean's first
economist to win a Nobel Prize, recommended a customs
union to harmonise trade policy in the region,
a recommendation which he suggested would go a
long way in addressing issues of poverty, unemployment,
shortage of skilled labour and capital constraints
in individual countries.
It would also encourage the free movement of labour.
The Labour Ministers said attempts were made last
week to address some of these issues in the absence
of a full CSME.
We trust that whatever those proposals are, they
too also become a reality.
Trinidad
Express
Wednesday, September 19th 2007
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©2007 Trinidad
Express . All Rights Reserved.
