Members of the Kingstown Cooperative Credit Union (KCCU) have been assured that the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be a good base for overall development.

National Planner Laura Anthony-Browne gave this assurance last Saturday as she delivered the feature address at KCCU’s 43rd annual meeting, staged at the Methodist Church Hall in Kingstown. {{more}}

The session was observed under the theme: “Exploring opportunities for growth and expansion within the Caricom Single Market and Economy.”

Anthony-Browne, a KCCU member who was recently decorated with the MBE, noted that “we live in a global economy of constant change. Products and markets are evolving continuously; the platform for developing is constantly raised.”

She was of the view that “we are more than ready to confront these challenges, including those hastened by the advent of the CSME.”

Anthony-Bowne declared: “Indeed, it may well be true to say that the people of the region are more ready to embrace the CSME than the politicians are and ever will be.”

She noted the reality of the political battlefield and declared: “The politicians can well be overwhelmed by the complexities and the enormities of the CSME. They may shy away from it, in the event that its implementation brings with it negative consequences for their political assurance or success”.

Anthony-Browne said it is not simply surviving the “inevitability of the CSME or any other environment [since] we will grow and expand in it and with it.”