(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) CARICOM Chairman, the Hon. Patrick Manning, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago said he was dissatisfied with the pace of the process of economic in many Member States; a situation which he feels has left them “severely vulnerable to external shocks.”

Prime Minister Manning says some of these external shocks have already affected many countries in the loss of preferential market access for some key products like bananas and sugar. “This is a big hurt which will result in the loss of revenue for both recurrent and developmental expenditure in many of our economies, some of which will be less capable than others to absorb this loss,” he said.

Prime Minister Manning noted that the obvious option for these Member States staying afloat would be increased borrowing, which was sure to aggravate further, the precarious debt- to-GDP ratio in some nations, and result in a level of debt servicing that would consume revenues needed for sustenance and development.

The CARICOM Chairman observed that many member states were “facing increased unemployment and poverty which has left the ground more fertile for already thriving illegal trade in drugs and arms.” This he said “had now raised the level of violent crime to unprecedented levels in CARICOM, which could eventually threaten the very security of our societies.” Prime Minister Manning continued “under such conditions it is not far fetched to conceive the insidious influence of the drug lords spreading more easily throughout the society and eventually reaching the highest levels of our political, security and legal systems.”

He pointed to the additional vulnerability of Member States to recurrent natural disasters, e.g. storms, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions which were now roaring through the Caribbean with greater ferocity, creating havoc in some of our economies and testing the capacities of administrations to deal with these recurring problems. Against this background and our increasing interdependence, Mr. Manning sees it as “imperative that we take action for the strengthening of the entire CARICOM family.”