Acting Prime Minister Richard Sealy told a group of students from Antigua that while his generation began the process for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), it was the youth that would secure its longevity.

He was addressing the 19 students during a ceremony at the CSME Unit, Sky Mall, Haggatt Hall, St. Michael, yesterday morning. The students are in Barbados this week participating in the Students Engaging in the CSME through Field Promotion Project. Sealy said that according to research done by the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development, the CSME “was widely unknown, misunderstood and unappreciated among the youth”.

It was therefore the responsibility of the Region’s leaders, he maintained, to develop initiatives aimed at empowering and positioning young people to take advantage of and contribute to regional integration and the CSME.

“The views of the youth are indeed integral in determining how we proceed with the further development of the Single Market and Economy,” he stressed.

Sealy told the students that CSME was currently operating at about a 71 per cent overall level of compliance and there was therefore a need for commitment at the national and regional levels.

Think of this project as a conduit to provide the knowledge base needed for you to actualise the vision of  the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas,” he suggested.

During their stay, the students will be exposed to the five regimes of CSME and how they operate in Barbados. These are the Free Movement of Goods, the Free Movement of Services, the Movement of Capital, the Right of Establishment and the Free Movement of Labour.

The Acting Prime Minister noted that while many Caribbean youth preferred to leave the Region in search of career opportunities, it was his hope that after this visit, the students would be able to better appreciate the many opportunities available within the Region. He pledged Barbados’ continued commitment to the implementation of CSME, adding that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s roles as CARICOM chairman and lead head on CSME Matters underscored the island’s commitment to these two Regional initiatives. Sealy also had high praise for the European Union for its financial support for the Students Engaging in the CSME Project. (Barbados Government Information Service)