Addressing staff of the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana, the CARICOM Chairman, who is also the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, stated that the full participation of CARICOM Member States in the CARICOM Single Market was paramount to the advancement of the integration movement, which he declared “alive and well”.

Prime Minister Manning went on to add that the operation of the regional Development Fund would be equally important to functioning of the CARICOM Single Market. According to Mr Manning, the Fund “should be finalized” during the Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government set to take place between 3-6 July, in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

In January, six Caricom member states formally signed a declaration of their governments' compliance with the provisions of the Treaty establishing the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSM).

The countries, namely Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, became the first six Caricom countries to have signed on to the single market.

However, the leaders of the six Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) agreed during a meeting preceding the official ceremony to push the Caricom Single Market start date for compliance to June 30. The OECS states include Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Of the four remaining Member States, The Bahamas and Haiti have not signified their intention to participate in the CSME process, and Montserrat - a British Dependency - is awaiting the necessary instrument of entrustment from the United Kingdom's government.

Meanwhile, Grenada is seeking to delay its entry into the economic bloc while it repairs its hurricane-ravaged economy. Grenada was devastated by Hurricane Ivan, which struck the country in September 2004. The total damage to Grenada was estimated to be in excess of EC$2.4 billion, more than 200% of Grenada’s 2003 nominal GDP. Nearly 90% of the houses in the country (approximately 28,000 houses) were damaged, of which approximately 30% were so badly damaged that they required complete replacement.

On July 14, 2005, just ten months after Ivan, as Grenada continued to rebuild, Hurricane Emily, a storm with sustained winds of 90 miles (145 kilometers) per hour, passed directly over Grenada. Emily exacerbated the severe losses suffered as a result of Hurricane Ivan and struck the few areas left relatively undamaged by Ivan. Total damages inflicted by Hurricane Emily were estimated to be approximately EC$140 million, or more than 12% of Grenada’s 2004 nominal GDP.

"My own bet is that Grenada may not necessarily be ready because with the advent of Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Emily (2005), Grenada would have been marginalized," Grenada's Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, told the Amsterdam News in March.