There has been a display of maturity, infused, we suppose, with a healthy dose of enlightened self-interest, on the part of the manufacturers' associations of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

This week, they joined the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association in calling on the Caribbean Community (Caricom) to move quickly to resolve trade problems in the community and to strengthen intra-regional trade. Significantly, too, the associations urged regional governments to get on with the job of creating a genuine single market and economy.

"It is imperative that at this time, given the current global economic downturn, decreasing global demand and increasing extra-regional competition, that governments of the region work together to remove all non-tariff barriers and unfair trading practices," the associations said in a joint statement.

Jamaica at jagged end of royal shaft

We, of course, agree. For the reasons cited by the manufacturers' group and for the fact that Jamaica, having long abided by Caricom's trade rules, has found itself, to put it mildly, at the jagged end of a royal shaft.

Trinidad and Tobago, Belize and Barbados are the major culprits, hiding behind concocted fears about weak sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations in Jamaica to erect non-tariff barriers against this country's imports. Jamaican firms have been unable to send their patties or to establish markets in Port-of-Spain, while beer and spirit producers confront Belizean obscurantists.

Our market in Barbados for soft drinks and plastics is, at best, insecure against the interventions of meddling bureaucrats.

The irony of all this is that with regard to visible trade, it is our regional partners, rather than Jamaica, that have most at risk. In 2008, for example, Jamaica imported US$1.68 billion from Caricom. It exported a mere $66 million to the community. In other words, Jamaica's trade deficit with Caricom last year was over US$1 billion.

Greatest beneficiary

Or, looked at another way, Jamaica's total Caricom trade last year was equal to 45 per cent of the value (US$5.2 billion) of intra-regional trade in 2006, the last year for which the community's secretariat has posted such figures. Trinidad and Tobago, of course, with its petroleum and food exports, is the greatest beneficiary, but it is not the only Caricom member to benefit from Jamaica's open market.

Clearly, therefore, it is in the interest of the manufacturers of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados that Jamaica - as the country's normally measured and urbane foreign affairs foreign trade minister, Dr Ken Baugh, felt compelled to warn recently - is not cornered into retaliation. It is in the interest of those of us in the region who appreciate the good sense of regional conglomeration, as represented by Caricom, that the community remains a rules-based organisation and that members follow the spirit and letter of the arrangements.

It is important that governments quickly heed the call by the three associations that all issues be dealt with as a matter of urgency "to minimise delays and remove impediments to trade".

There is another important reason why Jamaica's Caricom partners should view this matter seriously. Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party have travelled a long way to a tentative but increasingly warm embrace of Caricom. It would not be good if they are encouraged by irresponsible behaviour to loosen that grip.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.