(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) All speakers at the opening ceremony of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP) identified the greater convergence of Caribbean Community economies as a means of combating global financial and economic crises.

Speaking at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, formerly the Sherbourne Centre, in Bridgetown, Barbados on Thursday 29 January, COFAP Chairman, the Honourable Humphrey Hildenburg, Minister of Finance of Suriname; the Honourable David Estwick, Minister of Economic Affairs, Trade, Industry and Commerce of Barbados and His Excellency Edwin Carrington, Secretary General of CARICOM called for acceleration of movement towards completion of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

Mr. Estwick said the Member States of CARICOM had a responsibility and a duty to their citizens to move towards convergence of their economies. He said the global crisis highlighted why the regional integration process must move forward.

The COFAP Chairman, Mr Hildenburg said: “Let us decide today on realistic actions to be taken to advance the process taking into consideration the current financial and economic developments so that our people can start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Mr. Hildenburg said that while the crisis may slow down the pace of the integration process, Ministers of Finance and Planning should make all efforts to alleviate the negative effects of the crisis on their economies, so it would not delay the pace of the integration process.

Secretary General Carrington for his part stated that the Region’s small economies had “virtually no option but to come together as a Community to take decisive and collective actions to address not only their individual challenges but also to create an effective framework for joint economic decision-making. This is the only way in which they could effectively treat with what seems set to be a long and deep global economic downturn.”

Mr. Carrington pointed out that the crisis was already having an adverse effect on the Community’s major economic activity tourism and it was expected that remittances, foreign direct investment and exports would be similarly affected with the resultant effect on employment.

“While developed economies generally, have the capacity to offer significant stimuli packages to their populace, our Governments are constrained by the lack of fiscal policy space due particularly to high indebtedness and the increasing incidence of declining revenues,” the Secretary General added.

The meeting, which ends on Thursday, is also being attended by representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the Inter American Development Bank.