BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC—The chief executive officer of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Private Sector Organization (CPSO), Dr. Patrick Antoine, says he expects an important announcement regarding air transportation for the movement of agri-food products to be made at the CARICOM summit.
“This meeting is happening at a significant time, needless to say, where there are so many issues that we’ve been grappling with before that we have to make substantial progress on the issue, of course, of food and nutrition security continues still to loom large,” Antoine told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
He said this is particularly true now, with so many developments since the announcement by regional leaders in 2020.
“We have been able to make some progress, and there’s going to be an announcement here of the work that the CPSO and its members have been able to do and the achievements that we have registered on this matter of intra-regional transport, where the movement of agri-food products are concerned.
“So that is one crucial thing. And there are some commitments that we’d like to get from heads. That would sustain the advancements that we’ve had on that pillar.
Antoine, who is also a technical advisor to CPSO, said he believes there is a need to “recalibrate at this meeting” not just in terms of food security but also overall security, climate change, and the movements taking place in the region at this time, sitting at the third border of the United States.
“CARICOM has to find itself located in that now. This meeting is important because we still have to focus on our priorities, but in a different context, the priorities haven’t changed.
“I think many of them have become more urgent as the CSME process moves toward trying to get the free movement of all categories of Caribbean nationals, which is important for us,” he added.
The CSME allows for the free movement of goods, skills, labor, and services across the region, and Antoine seems to support the position adopted by Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit in calling for the free movement of all Caribbean nationals, not specific categories like university graduates, musicians, and media workers.
“So many facets of that cut across the need for us to essentially be able to build scale and get the quality experts that we want to work in various fields, whether accounting in building micro and small enterprise capacity or technology generation.
“All of those issues now, to my mind, call for us to deepen the CSME, particularly now that we’re operating in a different context, where we have to focus a lot more on South-South trade because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the medium term.”
Antoine said, “There’s so much happening with the policies of our trading partner to the north, where the sort of repatriation of migrant workers is concerned, the impact that’s going to have on production, security, food supplies, and the climatic shifts taking place.
“All of those things, in this dynamic context, just makes it more important for us to redo low efforts to achieve the CSME in all its dimensions,” he said, adding that “one of the key things the private sector wants to see” is a recommitment by CARICOM leaders to the achievement of the regional stock exchange.
“I’ve mentioned it because the regional stock exchange will enable what we want to achieve in food security, with building scale, with building capacity, with getting firms that suffer from finance and capital.
“You know…that continues to be one of the biggest challenges to our region’s micro and small enterprise sector. Building this regional stock exchange will allow us to do that,” he said, adding, “There are so many other things that depend on us putting this architecture in place.”
“And the private sector is enthused about heads giving a recommitment so that we can essentially set about the task of getting this comprehensive study done that we need the signal from heads right, that they’re prepared to work with us to get this done in the shortest possible time frame.
“So, yes, these are some of the critical issues for the private sector in this meeting, and we’re here to work, you know, in supporting member states because it’s so crucial for us, it’s co-dependence. We depend on them, and they are dependent. They rely on us.
Antoine reiterated that “there is an announcement on transportation that’s going to be made on the issue of the maritime transport; there is some progress.
“The private sector came pretty close to benefiting from the required funding. It is, in fact, private sector capital.”
He said, “Were it not for the fact that the financial proposals require vessels that are less than 15 years old, that service would have been up and running, “but for that fact, for the fact that we now have to essentially go back to the drawing board with the two firms.
“We would have had an announcement to make today. In the meantime, we’re working on other essential aspects of that. Trade facilitation is going to be key because there is no point in starting a service that is going …to suffer from some of the same drawbacks that we had before.
“And one of those drawbacks continues to be the cost of transiting ports. A lot is happening, and what’s happening now will undoubtedly auger well for this service when it does, in fact, come, but this is under consideration by two firms at this time. I believe that in this short time frame, we will have something that will be workable. ”
But he acknowledged that one of the concerns continues to be the region’s infrastructure, about the fact that tourism has rebounded. Our infrastructure needs to be essential and reorganized so that when a service comes to fruition, it can function optimally, right with cruise lines and cruise vessels in some key ports.
“There is no way that agricultural shipments can remain for eight to 10 hours while a cruise vessel is in one of the ports. And we’re going to find our ways around that. I realize now that a number of the heads get it, and arrangements are in place in various key countries, which we call hub countries in CARICOM, to assist us in working around those challenges and the central air transportation.
Antoine said that the CPSO will also assist the regional countries in dealing with what is emerging now in the United States, where President Donald Trump has adopted an inward policy.
“Our chairman has asked us, as CPSO executives, to begin the deep analysis of the trading goods and trading services. Let me be clear: We have continuously been in the CPSO because this is how the model was built by the owners of this institution, which is the private sector.
“We’ve maintained analysis of this issue for some time. We’re now going into an even deeper analysis, looking at that in the context of some announcements that the Trump administration made yesterday on essentially dealing with nonreciprocal tariffs. The argument, as we have received it, is that for the countries that have nonreciprocal access to the United States market but charge tariffs on US goods coming in.
“If we were to understand what is coded in the message, there is going to be a push for us to look at this in terms of a reciprocal trading arrangement so that if you charge, you know, tariffs on me, I charge tariffs back on you. ”
Antoine said that the region has some broader principles that guide trade and that those principles in the World Trade Organization, for instance, “are not principles that we can, you know, not, conform to in its entirety, because we’ve paid for these sacrifices before.
“And what it means for us is that we need to embrace multilateralism more. It’s a difficult time, but as we do that, we also need to deepen our integration process because the only way we can deal with those influences is through
“So the issue is not to move away from multilateralism. Others have the option of doing so. I don’t think we can essentially drive economic development based on adherence to one, you know, philosophical and, in this case, trace the trade policy option as opposed to another,” Antoine told CMC.
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