WTO HEAD CALL FOR CLOSER CARICOM INTEGRATION

Georgetown, June 13- Director General of the World Trade Organisation Mr Pascal Lamy has emphasised that the Region needs closer integration.

Speaking at the launch of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Regional Aid for Trade Strategy in Port au Prince, Haiti on Tuesday, Mr Lamy said the strategy sought to build on the promise of a Region free of barriers by identifying transformative projects that support closer integration.

“The Caribbean needs closer regional integration. And as you celebrate the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas this year, I think it is a fair question to ask how the Region can accelerate the pace which I witnessed some ten years ago when I was still the EU Commissioner and how it can honour the ideas of Williams, Burnham, Barrow and Manley — the founding fathers of the integration movement,” he added.

Mr Lamy said the best way to honour the architects of the Caribbean Community was to recommit to regional integration as the most successful and economically viable route towards greater and sustained development for the Region.

The Region, the Director-General said, had made some initial but crucial steps in concretising the role that Aid for Trade could play in its economic development. Mr Lamy identified Belize and Jamaica as having launched two excellent national strategies, both of which, he said, were profiled in Geneva, headquarters of the WTO, as examples of best practice.

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