PRIME MINISTER OWEN ARTHUR says there is a need for new intellectual ferment in the Caribbean.

The Prime Minister made introductory remarks at the launch of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) publications Caribbean Trade & Investment Report 2005 and Production Integration in CARICOM recently, at the Savannah Hotel, Christ Church.

"I am greatly pleased to be associated with the launch of these publications in the belief that they are not 'one-off' activities and that they signal a resurgence of that spirit of inquiry that often characterised and has been the benchmark of the Caribbean people's relationship to change in their region, and it is my belief that this is just the beginning", he said.

The launch of the publications was part of the three-day high-level symposium on the CSME held last week at the Sherbourne Conference Centre.

"The work that we are seeking to compress into three days and into one place was intended to be the subject of four major pieces of heavy intellectual lifting at four different places in the Caribbean stretching from Belize to Suriname.

"This conference is going to leave, I think, significant things behind. We will leave behind the beginning of a blueprint for a CSME and it will not finish here.

"There will hopefully be a conference to follow this, totally sponsored by the University of the West Indies, the Government of Barbados, and the CARICOM Secretariat, to carry forward the work that could not be finished here," he said.

He warned that the region should not let "the failure of Federation stop us from moving forward on an integration process" and "this period [was] vastly ripe for that intellectual ferment".

The CARICOM Secretariat, led by Secretary General Edwin Carrington, was responsible for producing the publications. They were "no less unique and even more valuable than the first" in cross-border development, Carrington said.

He also lauded the Prime Minister for "the dynamics" and leadership of the regional integration which the books referenced.

"I saw in that image a new Errol Walton Barrow, and here I might be stepping out of line, but I am speaking the truth of Owen S. Arthur leading us into the single market as Barrow led us into CARIFTA," he said to loud applause.

Some of the regional leaders of industry, senior Government officials, and academics were in attendance at the launch.