Bank Announces Plans to Host Conference to Help Barbadians Better Prepare for the CSME

The Central Bank of Barbados today announced that it will be hosting a public conference on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy titled “Charting our Course in the CSME” on Thursday, May 5, 2005 at the Sherbourne Conference Centre.
The conference aims to attract a wide cross-section of the Barbadian public by bringing together a variety of distinguished local and regional speakers, including: Government ministers, trade negotiators, business executives, academics, trade specialists and financial consultants to discuss how we can best position ourselves to maximise the benefits from the CSME.
“We have assembled a group of eminent speakers with varied regional experiences because we would like the discussions to focus on the practical aspects of maximising the gains from this economic and trade arrangement,” Governor Dr. Marion Williams commented.
 
She disclosed that the presenters will include: His Excellency Dr. Patrick Antoine, Grenada’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation; The Right Honourable Mr. Justice Michael De La Bastide, President, Caribbean Court of Justice; Dr. Winston Anderson, Legal Counsel, CARICOM Secretariat; Mr. Michael Mansour, Chairman, FirstCaribbean International Bank; Dr. Marion Williams, Governor, Central Bank of Barbados; Dr. Lawson Nurse, Barbados Private Sector Trade Team; Mr. Peter Miller, President, Barbados Manufacturers’ Association; Dr. Stephen McAndrew, Specialist, Free Movement Skills/Labour, CSME Unit; Mr. Marlon Yarde, General Manager, Stock Exchange of Barbados; Mr. Wain Iton, Financial Consultant, Capital Market; Dr. Trevor Farrell, Senior Lecturer, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago; Mr. Joseph Goddard, Managing Director, Goddard Enterprises and Dr. Compton Bourne, President, Caribbean Development Bank.  Prime Minister of Barbados, The Right Honourable Owen Arthur has been invited to deliver the feature address.

Consistent with the Bank’s desire to concentrate on the practicalities of the CSME, the speakers will be:

• Exploring the opportunities and challenges to trade in goods and services;
   
• Indicating how to build export competitiveness in the region;
   
• Examining the enhancement of the region’s under-developed capital markets in order to facilitate capital mobility and regional corporate expansion;
• Outlining corporate experiences with regional integration;
   
• Examining the short, medium and long term impact of integration on the regional labour force;
• Explaining the financing of the regional integration process;
• Discussing legal and institutional framework – highlighting the role of the CCJ;
• Explaining the feasibility of, and possibilities for, monetary union; and
   
• Examining the integration of the CSME into the wider global trading environment.

All are invited to participate in this important forum and seize the opportunity to ask questions of the experts, to represent the views of various interests and to share views on what can be done to more actively prepare for the CSME.
Attendance at the conference is free.