Programme Manager at the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) Unit in Barbados Ivor Caryll says the level of preparedness for the implementation of the free trade area was very high, and expressed confidence that all countries would be ready by the 2005 deadline.

“There are really two parts to the CSME and the deadline that we are talking about is the single market,” said Caryll.

“All of the evidence is that we are going to deliver the single market by next year December and I am very confident that we will.”

Caryll, who was speaking at a public forum on the CSME in Negril Wednesday, said the major task to remove restrictions across the region has been completed and a special legislative drafting facility had been established at the Caricom Secretariat in Guyana, to oversee all the legislative amendments needed across the region.

“What that facility has been doing is going through the laws of every Caricom state relating to the areas where they are going to open markets and identifying in those laws, what the restrictive elements are and drafting the amendments. This has been done for every restriction for every Caricom country,” he said.

The programme manager noted that only the policy issues were left to be sorted out at Cabinet level, and for the relevant bills to be brought to the different parliaments.

“So, the road between where we are now and where we have to get is very short,” he said.

In terms of capital support for the CSME unit, Caryll said the secretariat had received “substantial commitments” from the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development and the Inter American Development Bank for funding for technical programmes, including the drafting of legislation, policy refinement, and institution building.

Director of the Caribbean Development Agency (CDA) Jose Luis Liranzo said meanwhile that research conducted in member countries had identified engineering, construction, information technology and education as the main areas for investment opportunities in the CSME.

He, however, pointed to the need for the education of the people of the region in terms of what the CSME will mean for them as individuals and the region on the whole.

This need, he said, was critical in countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), such as Belize and Suriname.

Liranzo also suggested that the CSME be included in school curricula, to educate students about the body and how it would affect their lives.

The public forum was sponsored by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica in collaboration with the Negril Chamber of Commerce and the Negril Chapter of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.