Reflecting on the recent debates in the House of Assembly in Barbados on the Financial Statement And Budgetary Proposals for 2012, it should be quite obvious to most citizens that the local economy is still some distance away from stabilization and that a lot of work needs to be done to bring inflation down, grow and restructure the economy, reduce the level of unemployment and close the fiscal deficit particularly on the current side.
The good news, though, is that both the Barbados Labour Party and Democratic Labour Party have put forward workable ideas for tackling the major problems facing the country.
The only real missing piece of the puzzle is whether those in authority have the political will to implement the best possible solutions currently on the table, irrespective of the origin of ideas.
Indeed, Barbados is not the only country in the region struggling to overcome the difficult economic times.
Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, The Bahamas and Belize, and other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations are facing financial and economic challenges of their own and they too are searching for solutions that are deemed appropriate for their particular circumstances.
The question that arises is whether these countries can better overcome their economic problems through regional integration. To me, the answer to this question has always been in the affirmative. For this reason I firmly believe that we in CARICOM have to continue to work hard to ensure that regional integration works not only for one or a few countries, but for all.
But how is this possible?
One of the major goals of regional integration is the desire to increase trade among participating member states. To achieve that objective, barriers to trade, whether in the form of tariffs or non-tariff instruments, must be lowered or eliminated altogether.
The theory at work here is that trade generally promotes economic growth and development, which in turn reduces poverty.
Hence, the quality of life in member states stands to benefit. The downside to this issue is that with trade, there will always be winners and losers.
To overcome this, mechanisms ought to be put in place to compensate the losers in order to guarantee the continued participation of those who are being disadvantaged.
And to some extent we have seen this very thing in effect in CARICOM with, for example, the creation of the development fund.
At the practical level, increasing trade among member states requires the freeing up of barriers against the movement of the factors of production, goods and services.
And it is here that most of the challenges emerge, particularly in relation to the movement of labour.
For various reasons, many countries become “uptight” when it comes to allowing people to move freely across nations. And that, to me, is one of the fundamental problems still confronting CARICOM. It prevents us from reaping more benefits from regional integration despite almost four decades of manoeuvring.
Therefore, it is high time that all pertinent issues restricting our advancements in CARICOM be put on the table and resolved quickly to redound to the benefit of the people of this region.
That is the only way in which we can make regional integration work for all and sundry.
