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Caribbean Community
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies who are full members and 5 more who are associates, making 20 in all.
Its main purposes are to:
- promote economic integration and cooperation among its members
- to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared
- to coordinate foreign policy.
Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; operating as a regional single market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market); and handling regional trade disputes.
The secretariat headquarters is based in Georgetown, Guyana.
Since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by the mainly English-speaking parts of the Caribbean region CARICOM has become unofficially multilingual in practice with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname on 4 July 1995 and Haiti (where French and Haitian Creole are spoken) on 2 July 2002.
In 2001, the heads of government signed a Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas thus clearing the way for the transformation of the idea for a Common Market aspect of CARICOM into instead a Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy. Part of the revised treaty among member states includes the establishment and implementation of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
The web site is at http://www.caricom.org
Members
Full members
- Antigua and Barbuda (joined on 4 July 1974)
- Bahamas (4 July 1983) (not part of customs union)
- Barbados (1 August 1973)
- Belize (1 May 1974)
- Dominica (1 May 1974)
- Grenada (1 May 1974)
- Guyana (1 August 1973)
- Haiti (provisional membership on 4 July 1998, full membership on 2 July 2002)
- Jamaica (1 August 1973)
- Montserrat (a territory of the United Kingdom) (1 May 1974)
- Saint Kitts and Nevis (26 July 1974 as Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla)
- Saint Lucia (1 May 1974)
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1 May 1974)
- Suriname (4 July 1995)
- Trinidad and Tobago (1 August 1973)
Associates
- Anguilla (July 1999)
- Bermuda (2 July 2003)
- British Virgin Islands (July 1991)
- Cayman Islands (16 May 2002)
- Turks and Caicos Islands (July 1991)
Observers
Institutions
Among the 20 designated community institutions are:
- Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)
Among the five designated associate institutions of CARICOM are:
- University of Guyana (UG)
- University of the West Indies (UWI)