Above: CARICOM Headquarters

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Caribbean region needs closer integration, according to Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization.

Pointing to the history of the region, 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 Caribbean needs closer regional integration,” he said. “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.”

Lamy, who was speaking at the launch of the Regional Aid for Trade Strategy in Haiti on Tuesday, said the strategy sought to “build on the promise of a region free of barriers by identifying transformative projects that support closer integration.”

Two countries in particular, Belize and Jamaica, have already launched similar national trade strategies that have performed well, Lamy said.