Regional integration is not be thought of as a destination but should instead should be considered a journey says CARICOM’s Deputy Secretary General Dr. Armstrong Alexis.
Dr. Alexis was at the time speaking on VC3’s Round Table Talk program, discussing the various councils within CARICOM and their responsibilities.
“Integration is not a destination, integration is a journey, it’s a process. There never comes a time where at least in the model that is practiced in CARICOM, we do not anticipate that there will ever be a time when we would have accomplished full integration and that is perhaps what leads to some of the frustration from time to time, because persons are sometimes of the view that CARICOM has not done sufficiently, CARICOM can do more, I certainly agree, but there is still a lot that has been accomplished,” he said.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is a grouping of twenty countries: fifteen Member States and five Associate Members.
CARICOM came into being on 4 July 1973 with the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas by Prime Ministers Errol Barrow for Barbados, Forbes Burnham for Guyana, Michael Manley for Jamaica and Eric Williams for Trinidad and Tobago.The Treaty was later revised in 2002 to allow for the eventual establishment of a single market and a single economy.
