Bahamas Leaders Urge Progress Towards The CSME

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

16 March 2005

Senior Bahamian officials are arguing forcefully for the country to accelerate creation of the CSME (Caribbean Single Market) and to continue to work towards membership of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Although CARICOM's ultra-modern Secretariat building at Liliendaal, in Guyana, was opened to great fanfare last February, the reality is that the Caribbean Court of Justice (due to hear its first case this month) and some easing of travel arrangements are the only fruits of the enterprise so far.

Addressing the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce last week, Ambassador to Caricom A. Leonard Archer said that it is in the best interests of the country to join the CSME without delay. Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell told the same audience that other countries are ahead of the Bahamas. "It is just really time to decide and get moving on this. The fact is, decision making in banking and insurance takes place in the sector largely in the Southern Caribbean. So we ought to be in a position to keep and to attract those decision making centers here in Nassau. But if you keep rules and laws that are a disincentive to that happening, you are going to lose out many times."

In fact, the Bahamas has so far opted out of participation in the single market, citing concerns over the removal of trade tariffs and freedom of movement within the community, which includes Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Officially, the CSME is set to open its doors during 2005; but there are few signs at present that the doors, once opened, will give on to anything much beyond pious hopes.

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