Member

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – A series of consultations aimed at identifying national and regional measures to better facilitate trade in keeping with the commitments being negotiated under trade facilitation within the World Trade Organization (WTO) began here on Monday.
The consultations to be held throughout the seven-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States are aimed at simplifying and harmonizing international trade procedures such as payment of fees, access to information and cooperation between customs and other authorities. 

NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Prime Minister Perry Christie will address the Bahamas International Investment and Business Forum that begins here on Wednesday. The organisers said that the two-day event has attracted participation from more than 27 countries and is being held under the theme “At the Crossroads of 21st Century Trade and Investment”.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The Director-General of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) Directorate in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, Ivan Ogando Lora, has paid tribute to the former director-general of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Henry S. Gill, who died after a prolong illness in Trinidad and Tobago. “It is fair to say that the CARIFORUM-EU EPA will loom large with respect to the late Ambassador Gill’s legacy,” Ogando said of Gill, who died last week Thursday.

As well as exporting cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, mangos, breadfruit and potatoes, Haitians rely on 40% of the food produced in the country for local consumption. With this in mind, it's easy to see why last year's dramatic weather patterns and global economic meltdown produced aftershocks as significant and devastating as those of the 2010 earthquake. In 2012, there were five events – separate, but intrinsically linked – that Haiti did not handle well, in my opinion.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda says it is seeking a development policy loan from the World Bank based on a comprehensive debt framework. A government statement gave no indication as to the size of the loan, but said that it is a “budget support instrument similar to the policy” at the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Opposition Leader Owen Arthur wants his detractors to look at the policies of his Barbados Labour Party (BLP) ahead of Thursday’s general election rather than focus their attention on his health.
Arthur, who turns 64 on October 17, is seeking to regain the government that he lost when the BLP was trounced 2010 by the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).
Now as he campaigns for that poll, he is wishing that people would stop making his health an issue.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is likely to win as many as 20 seats in Thursday’s general election, according to the latest opinion poll published here on Tuesday.
The poll by the Caribbean Development Research Services Inc (CADRES), shows that the BLP, lead by former prime minister Owen Arthur could win between 17 and 20 of the 30 seats to be contested in the general election.

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – Grenadians were voting Tuesday to elect a new government after a six week campaign in which both the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the main opposition New National party (NNP) told voters they were best suited to deal with the socio-economic problems of the Spice Isle.
Long lines formed outside some of the 239 polling stations scattered across the island that opened at 6.00 am (local time) and will close 11 hours later. There are 45 candidates contesting the elections.

GEORGETOWN—The 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will be funding all future negotiations itself, according to Guyana’s Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett. She recently informed the 65-seat National Assembly, current negotiations between CARICOM and Canada for a Trade and Development Agreement are being funded by the region.
Rodrigues-Birkett’s statement came in the form of a written response to a series of questions by opposition front-bencher Carl Greenidge, who was previously a senior negotiator with Caricom’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN).

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - With at least one third of the Caribbean Community’s 15 Heads of Government absent from the current two-day Inter-Sessional Meeting in Haiti, it would be a welcome surprise if any new initiative of significance on the way forward for the regional economic integration movement is included in the communiqué to be released this evening.
Prior to yesterday’s start of this first Heads of Government meeting in Haiti, with President Michel Martelly presiding, it was disclosed by the CARICOM Secretariat that crime and security would top the agenda.