(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana) The Guyana Coalition of Service Providers (GCSP) will be launched on Wednesday 1 June in Georgetown, as a mechanism to prepare service professionals for the opportunities and challenges associated with the Services Regimes of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The Coalition will represent the convergence of professional associations and non-organised service professionals in Guyana, the third CARICOM Member State to join Barbados and St Lucia in mobilising citizens to better understand and participate in intra Regional service arrangements under the CSME.

As part of its thrust, the Coalition is also geared to familiarise service providers with the implications of the Region's hemispheric ( e.g. the Free Trade Area of the Americas), bilateral (e.g. the CARICOM-Dominican Republic), plurilateral (e.g. the EU-ACP) and multilateral (e.g. World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) agreements. In this context, Guyana's Minister of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation, Hon. Clement Rohee will deliver the keynote address at the launching ceremony.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is earmarked as the next Member State to launch a Coalition of Service Industries, even as CARICOM countries race to the December 2005 proposed date for the implementation of the CSME, currently the flagship of the Community.