(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) `CARICOM matters and if it were not there, we would have to invent it.’

So declared the Most Honourable Portia Simpson-Miller, Prime Minister of Jamaica on Wednesday as she delivered an address to the Opening Ceremony of the Thirty-Third Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Noting the “cynicism” with which CARICOM is greeted and the continuous questioning of its relevance, Prime Minister Simpson-Miller told the gathering in Castries, Saint Lucia, that she did not subscribe to those views.

“In fact, I want to underscore Jamaica’s commitment to regionalism as a core principle of our Foreign Policy and External Trade Policy,” the Prime Minister said.

With the refrain `CARICOM matters’, the Prime Minister pointed to areas in which the integration movement was beneficial to the people of the Region including in health care, in sports and culture, in times of natural disasters, in education, in the administration of justice, in foreign policy coordination and in security.

“This is why CARICOM was created in 1973, and it remains the reason we are here today – to craft policies and a direction for CARICOM that matter to our people,” Prime Minister Simpson-Miller said, as she underscored that all Caribbean peoples had to feel confident that CARICOM was capable of improving their quality of life.

“It is up to us to put the political excitement, meaning and fervor back into CARICOM. However, it is not enough that the people we serve feel excited about and satisfied with CARICOM. They must feel inspired by our outcomes. They must feel its relevance to their lives. All Caribbean peoples must feel that they are at the centre of our regional governance,” she said.

Acknowledging that much more work needed to be done, the Prime Minister highlighted areas for attention such as increasing the approved categories of persons who could move freely within the Community.

“We must embrace freedom of movement for our people. This must be the foundational pillar on which our integration rests. I call here today for an expansion of the categories of free movement to include security guards, household helpers, and caregivers. I urge us to be bold and inspirational and to recommit today to full freedom of movement in all categories by 2015,” the Prime Minister said.

Focusing on the trade imbalance that she described as a “distorting feature” of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), the Prime Minister said that there had to be a level playing field so that all could compete on an equal footing.

“Every single CARICOM Member State must benefit from our regional integration movement. Our private sectors must feel that there are opportunities to be pursued regionally, through innovation and entrepreneurship, through trade and investment.”

Human trafficking also had to be addressed, she said, and more attention had to be placed on women, children, the poor and vulnerable, the elderly and the marginalized and persons with disabilities.

Rekindling the spirit of Caribbean visionaries who understood that collectively we were stronger than the sum of our individual efforts, Prime Minister Simpson-Miller pointed out that our regional fathers were proud leaders fighting for a cause.

“As Caribbean leaders we have been given the task and responsibility to act in ways that will make the present and next generations of our Caribbean peoples look back with pride and call us blessed. We must craft and share bold visions, take strong decisions and inspire the daring self-belief that our ancestors felt like ‘wildfire in their bellies’.

“Now is the time. This is the hour. Let us with unity of purpose now move the agenda of the CARICOM forward. Let us unite and build our region. Our people deserve it. We will settle for nothing less,” she declared.

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