Caribbean Community and Common Market
Caribbean Community and Common Market
Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), organization established in 1973 to promote regional unity and to coordinate economic and foreign policy among Caribbean nations. Member countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Bahamas belong to the Caribbean community but not the Common Market.
CARICOM encourages economic cooperation among member nations through their participation in the Common Market. CARICOM also concerns itself with trade and industrial policy, technical and financial assistance programs for its less developed member nations, and foreign policy negotiations with nations and trading blocs outside the region. Member nations have experienced only limited success in these policy areas, partly because CARICOM economies have traditionally used trade barriers to protect internal markets. While some CARICOM economies have grown in the 1990s, unemployment and foreign debt remain high throughout the region. In addition, global and regional trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),have threatened the preferential access of CARICOM nations to foreign export markets in Europe and North America.
CARICOM efforts to enhance the economic competitiveness of its member nations include cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank, reduction of tariffs on nonagricultural products, and negotiations to improve the access of member nations to new markets. CARICOM also initiated creation of a more broadly based instrument of regional economic integration, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), which includes all 25 nations in or along the Caribbean. (1)
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Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) in relation with International Trade
In the context of trade organizations, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following definition of Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM): A customs union including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kins and Nevis, St. Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago; the Bahamas is part of the Caribbean Community but not of the Common Market. CARICOM was founded in 1973, superseding the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement. or CARIFTA. The CARICOM Summit in November 1992 set a common external tariff at 45 percent on most manufactured products, to be lowered to 20 percent by 1998; Antigua-Barbuda, Belize, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St. Lucia were authorized delayed implementation schedules.
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