CARIFORUM-EUCU-OCTs The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies.

CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and c ooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equ itably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy. Its major activities involve co ordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; opera ting 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. The European Union Customs Union (EUCU) is a customs union which consists of all theMember States of the European Union (EU) and a number of surrounding countri es.The customs union is a principal task of the European Economic Community, est ablished in 1958, and now succeeded by the European Union. No customs are levied on goods travelling within the customs union and unlike a free trade area members of th e customs union impose a common external tariff on all goods entering the union. One of the consequences of the customs union is that the European Union has to negotiate as a single entity in international trade deals such as the World Trad e Organisation. Several European Union member states have special territorieswhich, for historic al, geographical, or political reasons, enjoy special status within or outside o f theEuropean Union. These statuses range from no or limited derogationfrom EU p olicies, limited inclusion in EU policies or none at all. Most of the territorie s which are outside the EU nonetheless enjoy a special relationship with the EU. The outermost regions (OMR) are eight regions of EU member states which are par t of the EU. According to the EC Treaty, European Union law applies to these ter ritories with possible derogations to take account of their "structural social a nd economic situation ... which is compounded by their remoteness, insularity, s mall size, difficult topography and climate, economic dependence on a few produc ts, the permanence and combination of which severely restrain their development ...". There were initially seven outermost regions, as established by the EC Tre aty, but the Treaty of Lisbon included two additional territories, both of which seceded from one of the original outermost regions. Countries: Anguilla, Aruba, Bahamas, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Ter ritory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Falkland Is lands, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Greenland, Mayotte, Montserrat, Neth erlands Antilles, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha , South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands CISFTA The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose particip ating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the So viet Union. The CIS is a loose association of states and in no way comparable to a federation, confederation or supranational union such as the European Union. It is more comparable to the Commonwealth of Nations. Although the CIS has few s upranational powers, it is aimed at being more than a purely symbolic organizati on, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realm of trade, finance, law making, and security. It has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime pre vention. Some of the members of the CIS have established the Eurasian Economic C ommunity with the aim of creating a full-fledged common market. Countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan, Moldova and Armenia