​Thank you for that warm welcome. I am truly honoured to be with you today.
Let me begin by thanking our host – the Prime Minister and people of St. Maarten – and congratulating you on your new status and constitution.
These are exciting times for the entire country. I wish you all the very best for the future.
We are here to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS [PANCAP], to look at what has been achieved and discuss the challenges ahead.
​ I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments at this consultation to review the Draft Report and proposed strategy prepared by the Consultancy firm, European Profiles and Consortium.
​ Honourable Robert Persaud, Minister of Agriculture;
Representatives of Member States;
Participants;
Representatives of the Media;
Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this consultation. His Excellency Edwin Carrington could not be here with us today. However, he sends his warmest regards and best wishes for today’s deliberations.
​Service providers may also move to establish businesses under the Companies Act or the Registration of Business Names Act. The procedure in those cases would be the same as those applying to the establishment of business for the provision of goods by a Company.
The Caribbean Community Secretariat is moving full speed ahead to put in place the necessary procedures to enable additional Member States to issue the Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQ) in 2011.
To date, only three Member States of the 15-member grouping can issue the CVQ.
​I wish as Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as I make these remarks to join the preceding speakers in expressing great pleasure in addressing this formal opening ceremony of the 9th Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA).
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Mrs. Angella Persad, President, Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce; Your Excellency Yolanda de Gavidia, Secretary-General, Economic Integration in Central America (SEICA); Your Excellency Luis Andrade Falla, Secretary-General Association of Caribbean States Mr. Dennis Evans, President Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago (BATT); Professor Miguel Carrillo, Executive Director, Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business; Representatives of the Media; Ladies and Gentlemen;
​ Honourable Sheik Baksh, Minister of Education of Guyana and Chairman of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD);
Honourable Sheik Baksh, Minister of Education of Guyana and Chairman of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD);
​ I extend greetings to you from the Staff of the Directorate of Human and Social Development ,and in so doing could not help reflecting on the mixed fortunes of this Council, its ever changing composition, due to the democratic processes to which our Member States adhere and to overwhelming progress to be celebrated in what may be termed a decade of dedicated delivery.