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Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper proposes a modified gravity model based on the natural trading partner theory to assess the role of trade complementarity on CARICOM's international trade. The findings show that intra-CARICOM trade is increasing (marginally) in an environment characterised by rising trade structure complementarities (albeit low) while extra-CARICOM trade is increasing with declining trade structure complementarities. In particular, extra-CARICOM trade is strongly influenced by trade preferences in the European Union (EU), Canada and the United States of America (USA). This raises an important concern for policy makers as the region has started to negotiate Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with their former preference donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]