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In this edition of the TT Chamber’s column, we feature a compelling piece by Ms Vashti Guyadeen, CEO of the TT Chamber, introducing Edition 1 of our 2025 Contact Business Magazine, themed on the CSME. This marks our first issue for 2025, building on the legacy of previous editions. Stay tuned for the full publication, coming soon.
There is a quiet but resolute shift occurring across the Caribbean. Not the kind that dominates front-page headlines or garners Twitter storms, but one that signals something deeper: a recalibration of what it means to be “regional” in a post-pandemic world where size, scale, and speed matter more than ever.
In July 2025, a new chapter was opened quietly but firmly when four Caricom Member States took the historic decision to implement full and free movement among themselves. Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are not the largest economies in the region, nor the loudest voices in diplomatic circles. But their move, grounded in the long-overdue Protocol on Enhanced Cooperation, placed action where words have long lingered. For the first time in decades, a real-world application of full mobility, the holy grail of regionalism, is being piloted within Caricom.
This is more than symbolic. It’s a recognition that the old integration playbook is no longer sufficient.
Small states cannot afford to operate in silos or wait for regionwide consensus when the demands of globalisation, climate vulnerability, and technological transformation keep accelerating.
From principles to practice
The Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), established in 2001, was always an ambitious undertaking: a promise of a single economic space with shared opportunities for people, capital, and businesses.
Yet for many, it remained aspirational—a framework of ideals occasionally bumped forward by communiqués, rarely by policy.
The recent pivot—allowing subsets of countries to move ahead through enhanced cooperation—is an important departure from the past. It acknowledges that integration need not be hostage to the slowest mover.
This differentiated approach, inspired by similar models in the European Union, offers a pragmatic path forward: those who are ready, act. Those who aren’t, observe, learn, and prepare.
But the substance matters more than the structure. What makes this new compact consequential is what it enables.
It opens the door to actual freedom of movement, not just of skills, but of ideas, and services. It allows for mutual recognition of rights, obligations, and opportunities. And, if done right, it allows the region to move from a collection of segmented markets into a more seamless economic ecosystem.
Why It matters now
The pandemic laid bare the vulnerabilities of the Caribbean from logistics and labour to healthcare and food. It also reminded us that no single island, however prosperous, can withstand the weight of global crises alone. In the face of mounting external shocks, inflation, geopolitical fragmentation, and energy volatility, regional resilience must be earned, not assumed.
Free movement is one such tool. It is not a cure-all, but it is catalytic. It enables:
• labour market flexibility, so that talent can move where it is needed
• entrepreneurial scaling, by allowing businesses to operate more efficiently across borders
• diaspora re-engagement, offering Caribbean nationals abroad a broader return horizon
• demographic balance, especially in countries with ageing populations or declining birth rates.
Beyond economics, it signals a recalibration of identity—where being Caribbean is not just about shared festivals and food, but shared futures.
The sovereignty question
Of course, integration of this depth invariably triggers questions about sovereignty. And rightly so. For countries that fought hard for independence, regional integration may appear, to some, as an erosion of self-determination.
But sovereignty, in today’s geopolitical landscape, is a layered concept. It is no longer only about flags and borders. It is about agency, relevance, and leverage.
The CSME, at its core, is not a transfer of sovereignty. It is a pooling of risk and opportunity. It is a collective insurance policy against a world that increasingly favours scale. It is the scaffolding for shared prosperity in a region where fragmentation is the greater threat.
Countries will still set their own budgets, elect their own leaders, and design their own education policies.
But they will do so within a wider framework that allows for cross-border enterprise, collaborative problem-solving, and collective resilience.
The private sector’s inflection point
What is perhaps most notable and refreshing in this new moment of integration is that the private sector is not on the sidelines.
For too long, regionalism was the realm of officials, diplomats, and intergovernmental panels. But today, business leaders are not only supporting integration—they are shaping it.
From agriculture to animation, tech hubs to tourism clusters, there is an emerging cohort of Caribbean entrepreneurs and CEOs who view the CSME not as an abstract treaty but as a necessary infrastructure for growth.
They have recognised that intra-regional trade, while often celebrated, still faces too many friction points: differing standards, slow customs clearance, duplicative paperwork. And they have called for what matters most: predictability, scale, and access.
CSME—From framework to function
What is the CSME?
The Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) is a regional integration initiative aimed at creating a single economic space among Caricom member states. It allows for:
• free movement of goods, services, labour, and capital
• the right of establishment for businesses
• harmonised trade and economic policies.
Key milestones
• 2001—CSME formally established through the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas
• 2006—Free movement of skilled Caricom nationals begins
• 2022—CSME digital systems introduced in several member states
• 2025—Protocol on Enhanced Cooperation signed by all 14 CSME countries.
2025 breakthrough:
Full free movement pilot
Four member states—Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St Vincent & the Grenadines —will implement full and free movement of Caricom nationals among themselves from October 1, 2025.
Enhanced cooperation—What does it mean?
Allows a “coalition of the willing” to advance integration efforts—like free movement—even if not all Caricom states are ready.
What this means for you:
• easier access to jobs, residence, and business opportunities across participating countries
• families can move together—including spouse and dependents
• cross-border pensions, education access, and social protections being explored
• diaspora members may benefit from broader re-entry options across multiple states.
Full free movement, properly implemented, addresses all three. Moreover, it answers a quiet but growing anxiety among Caribbean business owners: that talent is increasingly looking outward. A borderless Caricom—in function, not just form—offers a regional runway for talent retention and reinvestment.
A region in quiet transition
To be clear, this is not the first attempt at reinvigorating the CSME. Nor will it be the last. The road to integration is long, uneven, and often politically inconvenient. Implementation lags, national interests flare, and public sentiment can be cautious.
But something feels different this time. Over the past six months, the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber has hosted more than five events focused on the CSME and all were oversubscribed! Perhaps it is the decision to act rather than wait. Perhaps it is the realism—that inaction has a cost. Or perhaps it is the recognition, across both the public and private sectors, that the Caribbean is more than the sum of its borders.
There is still much to be done. Legislative alignments, public sensitisation, digital platforms to enable mobility, fiscal protocols. But for once, there is a pathway and it is being walked.
In the end, integration is not about erasing identities or homogenising cultures. It is about unlocking the potential that has always existed in proximity but never fully accessed. It is about choosing alignment over isolation, design over drift, compact over caution.
So, as 2025 unfolds, perhaps what the Caribbean needs most is not another slogan, not another summit, not another timeline. What it needs is what it has begun: a quiet compact, shaped by resolve and relevance, to build a region that moves—finally—as one.
Did You Know?
• 70% of intraregional trade is informal, driven by mobile service providers and small-scale entrepreneurs
• there are now 13 skill categories eligible for movement under the CSME, including the most recent: aviation personnel
• the Caribbean has one of the most culturally diverse regional blocs globally, yet some of the lowest intraregional trade volumes.
Private sector priorities under the new CSME
“Regionalism must move from principle to performance.”
— Sentiment echoed at Business Outlook 2025
The private sector has emerged not just as a beneficiary but a co-driver of the region’s integration agenda. Here’s what business leaders are prioritising under the evolving CSME framework:
1. Harmonised standards & trade facilitation
• eliminate non-tariff barriers (NTBs) across Caricom
• harmonise sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules to enable agri-food trade
• digitise and unify customs processes.
Goal: Predictability, speed, and lower cost of doing business.
2. Seamless access to talent
• operationalise full free movement of people
• expand and enforce recognition of regional qualifications
• enable rapid deployment of workers across member states
Goal: Labour market flexibility, especially for MSMEs and project-based industries
3. Mutual recognition of business entities
• fast-track recognition of company registration, tax IDs, and business licences across borders
• enable cross-border financing and access to public procurement
Goal: Regional scalability for firms of all sizes
4. Cross-border infrastructure & logistics
• support regional shipping and transport systems (especially maritime and aviation)
• invest in logistics hubs and agro-processing zones.
Goal: Strengthen value chains and reduce reliance on imports
5. Public-private co-governance
• institutionalise regional advisory councils with private sector participation
• ensure implementation frameworks are inclusive, transparent, and data-driven.
Goal: Shared responsibility for execution and results
What businesses are saying:
“We need frictionless movement, not just agreements. Scale only happens when movement becomes seamless.”
—Regional logistics entrepreneur
“Our markets are too small to be this fragmented. Integration is a competitiveness strategy, not a political project.”
—Manufacturer, Trinidad and Tobago
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