(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Representatives of the Services Sector of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) wrapped up three days of deliberations on Friday in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, having identified the elements of a Draft Strategic Plan and Plan of Action to further develop the Sector.

The Regional Symposium on Services was organized with the goals of sensitizing key stakeholders on how to capitalize on the Region’s comparative advantage in Services; developing a plan of action for the next five years and identifying the elements of the Regional Strategic Plan for Development within the context of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The Symposium was organised by the CARICOM Secretariat with support from the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

About 120 delegates from across the Region, drawn from the public and private sectors, Chief Executive Officers and owners of firms operating in the Sector, international services experts and representatives of international organizations attended the forum at the Grand Royal Antiguan Beach Resort.

Following deliberations in five working group sessions on Tuesday, the delegates presented reports to the Symposium’s final session which was chaired by the Hon. Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, and Lead Head of Government with Responsibility for Services.

The main elements and issues that the reports identified included the goals of each of the Services Sub-sectors, the policy and legal frameworks, human resource and financing requirements, technological needs and how to enhance cross-sectoral linkages.

“The identification of the elements of the Strategic Plan and Plan of Action, one of the goals of this Symposium, was an ambitious one, given the fact that we tried to address all the relevant issues associated with the Services Sector. The right mix of skills provided the environment within which we managed to achieve the goals of this exercise,” Prime Minister Spencer said.

Briefing the press following the Symposium, Prime Minister Spencer, lauded the “ambitious” achievement of the exercise, but warned that the work did not end there.

“I am quite pleased, as Lead Head of Government on Services that we have accomplished what we set out to do at this stage. But the work does not end here. We have to take some bold steps to capitalize on the competitive advantages that we have in some areas, take control of those that seem adrift, and focus on nurturing the others,” he told representatives of the media.

During the course of the Symposium, delegates had underscored the role and importance of education in positioning the Region in the global competitive market and the need for ensuring that the education systems were relevant. They also pointed to the number of opportunities in the Services sub-sectors that could be better exploited including sports and tourism, and the need to target the Diaspora.

Shortly after the Symposium concluded, representatives of National Coalitions of Services began meeting to chart a course for the establishment of the remaining Coalitions and for the creation of the Regional Coalition of Services. To date, eight Member States have established their coalitions: Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

Over the next six months, Prime Minister Spencer will initiate a number of activities among which are the establishment of the Regional Services Sector Project Steering Committee and the convening of its first meeting; the further refining of the work started at the Symposium; and the convening of sector-specific symposia to enable greater inputs from those stakeholders who were not at the Symposium.

The Prime Minister also told the media that he would also initiate a meeting with the donor community to secure funding to implement the Strategic Plan and Plan of Action.

The Councils for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) and Human and Social Development (COHSOD) will also consider the results of the Symposium and the work of the Regional Project Steering Committee.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org