Caribbean integration: An agenda for open regionalism

Choices and Change: Reflections on the Caribbean

“…3 For a more comprehensive view of these issues, see Dookeran (1995). 4 These include the collapse of the Cold War; the worldwide lowering of trade barriers and the integration of markets; the globalization of capital, production, distribution and exchange; technological advances; and the convergence of common interests and concerns.…”

“…Caribbean regional cooperation, tempered by the idea of open regionalism, is an agenda that can now be presented by the Caribbean countries to the world (Dookeran 1994). An intermediate, somewhat indeterminate program, it would be a cross between Caribbean developmentalisin, aimed at internal integration, and economic liberalism, aimed at wider transactions-to be a zone "open to all the citizens of the world" (Calderon Foumier 1994).…”

“…Special tax provisions for the tourist sector were added, as well as compensatory measures to support the economies of Puerto Rico (for which President Reagan favored statehood) and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 15 Whatever the limitations and imperfections of the CBERA, such as the inadequate provision for textiles, the fact that, as Winston Dookeran has pointed out, this was "the first time that the United States had granted preferential economic treatment to an entire geographic region," was very well appreciated among Caribbean leaders (Dookeran 1995).…”