ABSTRACT
The Caribbean stands at a critical juncture in its historical evolution. Five hundred years after the "discovery", the countries of the region, by an almost perverse twist of fate, are confronted with the need to make a number of fundamental choices both in their domestic economic policy and in their external economic relations. Furthermore, as US global economic hegemony has declined, new economic power centers have emerged in the form of the European Community (now European Union) and Japan and the East Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs). In terms of the European Community, the expansion of membership to include Spain and Portugal has generated increased pressure to grant the Central American countries similar preferences enjoyed by the Caribbean, particularly in bananas. In brief, the challenges facing the Caribbean in the late 1990s would require a fundamental re-thinking of development options and the fashioning of a new development paradigm.
