THE REGION HAS COME too far to turn back now from CARICOM integration.

CARICOM Secretary General Edwin Carrington said at the opening ceremony of the Convocation of the CARICOM Single Market And Economy (CSME) yesterday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael, that it is time to get on with the business of building of a community which is 36 years old.

Noting that it has been almost four years since the start of operations of the Single Market, Carrington said the word "crossroads", often used to describe the stages of the integration movement, was not misplaced in today's context.

" . . . It is not enough to say that we have existed longer than any, but rather can we say that we have grown more than any other or have prospered because of the integration movement?

"It must not be enough to say that we took a shorter time than the European Union to establish our Single Market, if we cannot say at the same time that it has operated efficiently and to the benefit of the people of our community. And that, we certainly cannot yet say. It is for that reason that it is critical that we undergo occasions of self-examinations as we undertake today," Carrington said.

There is a need, he added, for "free and frank discussion" at the two-day meeting called for by Prime Minister David Thompson in July last year to discuss free movement of CARICOM nationals, the Single Economy, the report on the Appraisal of the CSME, and contingent rights.

Prime Ministers Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Baldwin Spencer of Antigua, who are attending the two-day convocation, were asked by Carrington to consider the implications of failing to integrate.

"What, for example, will be the cost of non-CARICOM or of non-CSME? Are we willing and able individually to face a Europe, a United States, a Canada, a China, a Brazil, an India as trading partners?" he asked.

"The reality is that an efficient single market and economy is this community's best hope in relating to the international community and for its own growth and prosperity, and for an improvement in the standard of living of our people," he added.

The secretary general told the audience at the historic meeting to "stop equivocating" and get on with the process so that "our children and their children will benefit and be proud".