The Caricom Single Market was formally launched on Monday, January 30, at the University of the West Indies , Kingston , Jamaica.

In his address, the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, His Excellency Edwin W Carrington described the arrival of the Single Market as “a new dawn, long hoped for, but well worth the waiting,” and an achievement of “great significance.” He said “its substance involves the very essence of Community—the co-mingling of its peoples—its greatest assets.”

The Single Market, as the Secretary-General noted, provides “for the free movement of skilled Caricom nationals, of providers of services, of the self-employed and of those establishing businesses.”

He said “important as the regime for the production of, and trade in goods has been in the integration process, and indeed, will continue to be, the Single Market brings most centrally into the integration process—people.”

Sir Edwin revealed that in the first four weeks since the regime came into effect on January 1, “more than 2,000 applications had been received for the Caribbean Skills Certificate—an important instrument for the free movement of skilled workers.”

The Secretary-General told the gathering, which included the Governor General of Jamaica and Lady Cooke, Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his Jamaican counterpart Prime Minister PJ Patterson, other heads of government and government ministers that it was the founding fathers of Carifta who began the journey to the Single Market over a generation ago “guided by such intrepid visionary regionalists as William Demas, Alister McIntyre and Shridath Ramphal.”

The ceremony last week took place almost 17 years after the process was initiated at the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Grand Anse Grenada .