(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) opened in Bridgetown, Barbados, Thursday morning with a weighty agenda that included the consideration of the Report of the Audit on the CARICOM Single Market, and the improvement of practices related to approving suspensions of the Common External Tariff (CET).

The report of the Audit, conducted by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, is the main subject of a Convocation of stakeholders which opens on Friday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre, Bridgetown, Barbados. At least five Heads of Government will attend the forum.

Heads of Government, at the Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Antigua and Barbuda, had mandated that the CARICOM Secretariat undertake the audit to determine the status of implementation of the CSM and the challenges Member States encounter in its establishment.

Acknowledging the Ministers’ heavy workload, His Excellency Edwin Carrington, Secretary-General of CARICOM described the 28th COTED as “highly significant” given the fact that at least two of the seven substantive agenda items had the potential to significantly influence the Community’s future path depending on the recommendations and decisions.

“The Single Market has been in operation for close to four years now and this thorough and detailed assessment of where we are in its implementation should provide the type of information needed to guide and shape the future of the Single Market. It should also provide some direction to the work to establish the Single Economy.”

The Secretary-General, in his remarks at the opening of the COTED also referred to the recent decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the case Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) vs. the Caribbean Community.

“Ministers, you also have the responsibility today to determine the future operations of this Council in relation to certain of its established procedures. In this regard, you have certain guidance from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The Court, in delivering its judgment on 10th August in the case of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) versus the Caribbean Community, while finding no illegality regarding the processes, nevertheless pointed to certain aspects of the established practice in approving suspensions of the Common External Tariff (CET) by the COTED and the Secretary-General, which must be improved. In direct response to the views set out in the judgment, certain proposals are before you.

“Indeed, that judgment signalled the need for this Council and possibly all the Community’s Councils, to take a new look at their current operational procedures. We are therefore in somewhat of a new era given the legal implications for actions and decisions taken by our Councils – and even by the Secretary-General. In a society which subscribes to the rule of law, this is as it should be,” Mr. Carrington said.

The COTED will also receive from the Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN), the list of CARICOM College of Negotiators for the CARICOM-Canada Trade and Development Agreement, and will consider a strategy for the Region’s approach to the Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland in November.