Damion Mitchell, Assistant News Editor

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent:

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, has rebuked Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding for his disagreement with the plan to coalesce Caribbean economies.

Gonsalves made the comment in the Vincentian capital last Thursday shortly after tabling a resolution in Parliament for the participation of the archipelago in an economic bloc, including two other Eastern Caribbean states - St Lucia and Grenada - and Trinidad and Tobago.

"You can't move at the pace of the slowest," Gonsalves said of Golding's disapproval of Jamaica's involvement in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). "There is nothing untoward with elements of moving within CARICOM faster than others."

The new Eastern Caribbean bloc, whose formation has drawn some criticism, is scheduled to germinate by the end of 2009, well ahead of the slated start of the CSME in 2015. Gonsalves said the Eastern Caribbean was pressing ahead with the economic union because he believed the CSME would not materialise by 2015.

2003 declaration

In 2003, CARICOM leaders made a declaration in the Jamaican city of Montego Bay for the establishment of a CARICOM commission to facilitate the single economy.

But Golding, who was in opposition at the time, said the move was an attempt to reintroduce the failed West Indies Federation which foundered in 1962.

"It makes perfect sense in economic terms for the Jamaican Government not to be too excited about a single economy," Gonsalves said, adding that only four per cent of Jamaica's total exports were sent to the region.

In the meantime, Arnhim Eustace, the opposition leader in the St Vincent Parliament, said he could not fully support the single economy component until he was satisfied there was no disadvantage to St Vincent and the Grenadines.