BY month’s end five categories of persons should be able to move and work freely within the Caribbean Region without a work permit. The categories are artists, sportsmen, musicians, media workers and university graduates.

However, the free movement will be for specified terms and contracts and not an open invitation for “those intent on setting up residence”, said Desiree Field-Ridley, advisor to the Single Market and Sectoral Programmes at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

She was speaking, yesterday, during a workshop on the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), held in conjunction with the Freiedrich Ebert Stiftung at the Knutsford Court Hotel.

The agreement will follow the approval of the implementing legislation covered under the Caribbean Community Free Movement of Skilled Persons Act now before Parliament’s Legislation Committee.

Field-Ridley noted that the ministries of foreign affairs and foreign trade, health, labour and social security, as well as the relevant line agencies were now consulting on amendments to be made in relation to persons falling outside the scope of the Act.

“Eventually all citizens can move freely throughout the region”, she said.

Other future aims include the elimination of the need for passports for CARICOM nationals for travel within the region. They will be replaced by the use of an ID card.

These moves form part of initiatives towards the establishment of the CSME which is expected to be established in Jamaica, as well as Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago by December 2004 and across the entire region by 2005.

Yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, KD Knight, implored the gathering to help interpret what the CSME would mean to ordinary Jamaicans.

“The ordinary Jamaican wants to know how it will affect him,” he exhorted. “What does it mean to our producers, how can they become part of a process whereby they can integrate as a launching pad to the Free Trade Area of the America’s and its 800 million potential consumers?”

He added that governments could provide the enabling environment, but it was up to the private sector to invest and create the needed growth and development.

Also on the fast track for implementation, according to the senior director of foreign trade in the ministry, Wayne McCook, is the revision of the Treaty of Chaguaramas to widen the terms and broaden the participation of countries in the CSME. The revised treaty is expected to be ratified and the enabling legislation put in place by November this year.

McCook also noted that steady progress was being made towards the enactment of anti-dumping legislation and countervailing measures regionally; the establishment of competition policy in preparation for a regional competition commission; the ratification of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ); consumer protection legislation and the implementation of harmonised customs legislation, regulation and forms.